


In Living Memory

by Ziracona



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: AND DRAMA, And straight up horror and psychological horror, Ensemble Cast, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Heavy and Graphic Violence, Horror Comedy, Hurt/Comfort, Language, Multi, OT Friendships - Freeform, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Repeated Deaths (as is natural for DbD), Sexual Content, Suicide, Suicide Referenced, There's just a whole lot going on, Torture, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2019-07-08 10:07:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 45
Words: 497,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15928223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ziracona/pseuds/Ziracona
Summary: The Wraith had always thought that he was doing the right thing serving as Reaper for the Spirit who'd found him, but when his prey begins acting in ways which make him question that, things in The Entity's realm start to go in directions it won't allow.  Any time those barely surviving choose to take a stand, there is always a price to pay, and in a cyclical living nightmare like this, how much can the survivors really afford to believe in?Is it truly possible for there to be any good end when you're already in hell?





	1. Something to Remember

My name is Philip Ojomo. 

I have been here for years I think now, in this other plane. I used to try to keep track of days and months and years by counting, but the sky never changes. I know I’m guessing at this point.  I go by entries.

So. Entry 14,582.  And Journal number 2.

I did not used to keep a journal, but the old book I found so faded it was nearly blank is now too full of my writing for me to continue to use it. It took me fourteen trials to find this new one, so I have very much missed writing in those days in between. I don’t know what it is about this place that made it seem so necessary that I start writing things down. I was disoriented and shaky at first, but it can’t have been more than a week after arriving here that I began to scribble things down on pieces of cloth I found, using charcoal from a fire bin.  Maybe there is something in the air. It is eternally dark, but never the deep black of true night—that darkness lingers at the edge, just past what you can see, but changes when you approach and get close to it. The atmosphere is always heavy with smoke and fog, and the fires do not cut through it yet can be seen at great distances.  There is something in the air to remind you that you are already dead, and nothing you do can change. 

It makes you want to chronicle. To put something down on paper to try and make it immortal. I think maybe it is a feeble attempt at some kind of life in this world. If I can’t have my own life anymore, then maybe I can give one to my memory. It’s something at least. I reread my entries and am sometimes comforted by them. Perhaps that is silly. They are never good, because nothing that happens here is good, and also because I am not a good writer. They do not promise me new hope, and show only how wrong I have been and how far I must still have to go, and yet, it is proof I have done this before. Time has passed, I have kept going. That is something, even if it does not feel like it.  It is something and I have proven it with words.

It’s not much. But anything in this place is a miracle.

I wish I could still think of things worth recording, but I can’t. What could I say I have not already told myself many times? Today I chased the same souls I always chase.  I don’t know what sins they committed in life to face me as their reaper, and I don’t want to.  I don’t even know if they are truly the same group of undying phantoms, made to look young, almost like children, or if each day the people are new and the appearances merely remain the same as part of my payment.  Either way, each day is the same.  I dig my blade into their backs and chests and cut them down. I pick them up as they struggle feebly or weakly bleed out, and I hang them on hooks for the whispering voice of the great Spirit. No one escaped me.  I have gotten better at this.  The past few times I have done this not one has made it out.

It does not feel like an achievement.

I used to think I would never get used to this. To hunting, to killing. I always remind myself that this is payment, this is not normal life. I have become the reaper for this Spirit to repay my debt, for the innocent souls I took.  I hunt like I hunted Azarov, I let my hatred fuel me, my anger. I will cut down all people like him, I will rain down punishment. It is fair. I used to say that whole thing to myself a lot, to try and make it easier for me. Things like I just said too, about not wanting to know what they did to deserve me. I thought doing that would make it easier for me to kill them, and I would suffer less.  I thought when I started that it would always burn me inside when I heard them run and scream, or tore one away from another they were trying to rescue from a hook.  I really did. But now I think I have become numb to it, which is much worse.

I used to try and record details too. Things I saw, markings in the buildings, anything that stayed the same in the ever-changing terrain. Hoping for some kind of change or significance. Even though the Spirit gives me commands and instructions, teaches me new tricks, sometimes even offers rewards, I still know so little about this place.  It tells me that it is none of my concern, that I should respect it, and I guess it is right.  I have paid the price for disrespect before.  I didn’t really know what pain was before I came here.  Recording details used to make me feel like maybe I was learning, in a way that I would be forgiven for, but it is harder and harder to care about that now. I should not give up though, I should think of something I can read tomorrow which is particular enough to bring a memory back.

Okay. Let me think.  All I can think of is an unpleasant memory, but I guess it is something.

The redhaired girl almost escaped me today. She turned and ducked right between my legs when I was upon her and I overswung. I was so surprised that I stumbled forwards a few steps and crashed into a wall before giving chase, and for a second it felt like tag or hide and seek. I remembered a girl I knew in class doing that once when we were very little.  It made me sick. I wish I could feel nothing. We were in the shed, and the droplets of blood from the gash on her back I’d carved refused to soak into the broken pallet in the doorway. They just glistened, then vanished, like everything in this artificial realm. They were much more red than the pallet chunks. A real color. Everything here is so muted.

Maybe someday I will look back and find this comforting.

 

* * *

 

 

 _Dwight, Dwight don’t do it. He’s too close._ Claudette turned to try once more to see where the Wraith had gone, and the motion sent waves of pain shooting up her neck and down her arm. She bit down on her lip to keep from crying out. Claudette had been hooked thousands of times, but it’s impossible to grow used to the sensation of being impaled, of hanging, all  your body weight tearing down on your collarbone, the metal slicing through the flesh, the weight on the wound, the way the pit of your stomach sinks when you feel the blood seeping down your chest and watch red blossom through your clothes and feel yourself dying.

She was scared, she was always scared during trials, but there were parts of that you could get used to and learn how to bear. Pain was different. She’d gotten tougher, but it still burned. It still made her stomach drop and filled her with panic.

And now she was scared for Dwight. He was edging along boxes, trying to make it to her, but he was already bleeding badly himself. A deep cut on his shoulder.

What was worse was that she couldn’t point, give him some idea where the Wraith had gone, because then it would know she saw a friend. Not that she knew where to point even if she could. He’d gone invisible and taken off, but it had been seconds ago. Dwight hadn’t given him enough time to move on, but he didn’t know that. The Wraith had stayed close after hooking her for a few seconds, watching from the hill for signs of the others. Dwight had been too far away to hear him disappear a few seconds ago.

The worst part was the guilt, was that as much as she wanted him to run, she also wanted to be rescued. She tried so hard to care for the others and protect them, and she knew this was selfish, bad. She was so scared, and it hurt, and the memory of what it felt like to be skewered by the Entity was banging against her skull. 

She was dreading struggling against the monster that imprisoned them here, worried about her friends, five generators to go and without her to help them. She didn’t want to die again. And seeing how ready he was to risk himself to save her, it filled her with hope and happiness even though she knew she should want him as far away from her as possible. It made her feel guilty to be happy about this, but she couldn’t help it. There was a reason he was a good leader, and it was that he always tried to be there for the rest of them, even when it was stupid.  Maybe especially when it was stupid.

They were never alone with him around.

Dwight broke cover and ran up the hill in a mad dash. Claudette looked around frantically for signs of the Wraith reappearing, but saw nothing. It wasn’t until his arms were lifting her off the hook that they heard the bell toll from behind the hook and saw the monster’s form burn into existence.

She grabbed Dwight’s arm and ran.

Their feet dug into the soft earth as they sprinted frantically, trying to do anything they could to lose the monster behind them. Claudette slid over the top of a pallet and ducked past another, close to a maze of crushed cars they might lose him in. Behind her, she heard Dwight scream and the thud of a pallet falling.

Claudette spun on her heel and saw the Wraith shaking its head in pain, and Dwight crawling away from a fallen pallet, blood oozing from his back.

She knew she couldn’t make it, but Claudette ran.

Dwight did his best to wave her off, trying to get her to hide, but she kept going, skidding to a stop on her knees beside him. She tore off a strip of gauze from her medical kit and tried to stop the bleeding. She heard the telltale _crack_ of the Wraith breaking the pallet between them and knew she was out of time.

Her instinct was to run, but there was something stronger than instinct. She kept trying to stop the bleeding.

Dwight tried to shove her off of him, but she felt in her chest the way she’d felt when she’d seen him coming for her, even though she knew she shouldn’t want him to, and she knew somewhere deep down he must feel the same. Nobody wanted to die alone, nobody wanted to be abandoned. He’d been on a hook before, for too long. If she left him he was dead. She couldn’t save him, but she could stay.

Claudette threw herself between Dwight and the Wraith and looked up into its face as it raised its blade.

It stopped, mid-swing, and just stared at her, like it had frozen, or was a robot someone had flipped the off switch on.

For a few horrifying seconds they just stared at each other.

“Claudette, just go!”

That broke her out of her tableau. “No,” Claudette replied, whispering out of instinct because the Wraith was so close now it couldn’t possibly matter.  Without breaking eye contact with the figure towering over her, Claudette stopped the bleeding and pulled Dwight back a few feet.  It still didn’t move, except its glowing white eyes, which followed her.

“What are you doing?” Dwight asked in an equally hushed tone as she pulled him into a half sitting position and tore off a strip of gauze to wrap around his shoulder. He looked up at the Wraith then too.

Slowly, the big monster lowered its blade. It just stood there, still staring, then blinked and took one small step backwards.

“What is _it_ doing?” Dwight asked, more confused.

Claudette was trying to keep her eyes on the Wraith while bandaging Dwight, which was easier said than done. With a second pair of eyes on the monster, she glanced down to get a better look at the gash on his back.  “I don’t know. It didn’t hit me and kind of froze up.”

“Why?” She could tell Dwight was thinking a million miles an hour, trying to formulate something that made sense. “For fun? It thinks we’re that beaten?”

They did have five generators to go.

Claudette didn’t reply. She kept bandaging, then pulled Dwight painfully to his feet.  “Let’s get out of here before it changes its mind.”

He nodded, still staring at the monster which was staring back. Claudette had to tap him on the shoulder to actually get him to come.

 

They backed away until the Wraith was out of sight. It never once moved to follow them.  They found and fixed two generators together quickly as somewhere out in the junkyard their companions set off another.  They bumped into Meg at the fourth, and Jake at their last generator.

“What happened?” Meg asked as she slowed her sprinting towards the exit so the others could keep up. “Wraith grabbed Dwight and Jake back to back, then you, and I haven’t so much as heard him since.”

“Yeah,” Claudette replied, breathing much harder than Meg had to, “He sort of let us go.”

Jake looked over at them with the clearest “What?” expression, but said nothing.

“I don’t know,” Dwight answered for her, “It’s like he broke or something. He stopped moving.”

Meg quit running.  “Where is he? I wanna see.”

Jake gave her a disbelieving look and walked the last few feet to the exit gates and flipped the switch to open them.

“You want to go back there?” Claudette asked.

“Yeah, I want to see it,” Meg said again. She gave the gates a glance. “After those are open.”

“Well, it is the most unusual thing that’s happened in a long time. Could be important,” Jake conceded as the doors slid open. He turned around to face the others. “Okay, let’s go.” He pointed at Meg. “But if you get hooked because we went sightseeing, I’m leaving you.”

He didn’t mean it. 

“Buddy, I’d leave you in the dust. No offense, but you all run like 60 year old men,” Meg replied, already heading off. She stopped. “Oh, right. I don’t know where we’re going. Claudette?”

Claudette nodded and motioned the others to follow.

 

It didn’t take them long to find him again, because he hadn’t moved at all. He was standing there, by a broken pallet and some crushed cars, staring at nothing.

The four survivors leaned out past a row of nearby cars and watched. He didn’t seem to see them.

“Woah, you guys really did break him,” Meg observed.  “Cool.”

“Can they break? I always thought they were alive—like people,” Claudette responded, “Do you think..?”

It looked up at them and all four jumped and dove back behind the stack of crushed cars.

“Is it coming?” Claudette asked, back pressed against the wall.

“I didn’t see,” replied Dwight.

Jake stuck his head out and looked.  “It’s not,” Jake called back quietly. “It’s just looking at me.”

They all slid half out from behind the cars again. Jake was right. The Wraith stood looking at them.  It turned its head ever so slightly as the others slid into view.

“What did you do to it?” Jake asked, looking up the stack to Claudette and Dwight.

“Nothing,” Dwight replied.  “It stopped on its own.  I mean, I guess I hit it with a pallet.  But not any better than before.  I’ve hit him like,” he actually estimated in his head for a few seconds, “12,000 times give or take.”

“It kept coming for us after that, and then it just didn’t.” Claudette was watching it carefully, trying to see any potential wounds from this distance.  She hadn’t even thought that the pallet might have messed up its head until Dwight suggested it just now. “It was ready to hit me, we were both on the ground, and then it stopped and just stood there, and then when I moved Dwight away it took a step back and kept watching us, and it’s still standing there.”

“Should we get a closer look?”

They all looked at Jake. He just returned the incredulousness with a _What?_ gesture.

“What if he kills us all?” Meg asked. “Weren’t you the one who didn’t want to come at all?”

“Yeah, but I hadn’t seen him yet. I want to get out of here. C’mon, we’ve all died before—what’s one more?”  Jake stood up and turned to face them. They looked uncertain.

“Well,” Dwight conceded, “this could be big. If we found a way to long-term stun them or something. ..But we shouldn’t all go, I’ll do it.”

“Why you?” asked Claudette, worried. “I’ll go.”

“No offence, but you’re half-blind. I’m fast, I should go. Or Jake,” Meg added.

Jake was already gone.

“Ah, dammit,” Meg looked out past the edge of the cars. He was slowly creeping towards the Wraith. As he got closer to it, it watched, then slowly took a step forward and raised its weapon. Jake stopped. It took another step towards him, then another, steadily moving faster. He started to back up.

“Jake, run!” Claudette screamed. He turned to look at her.  As he did, the Wraith lunged at him and swung, missing by a huge margin. Jake took the hint and booked it back towards the others.

As soon as he reached them they took off as one, making a B-line for the waiting exit. As they ran, Dwight looked over his shoulder and saw the Wraith slow down and then finally stop and watch them flee.

He kept running, and the four of them passed together into the waiting temporary safety of the campfire.


	2. Second Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With The Wraith hesitating, there's a lot for everyone to consider. Unfortunately, he's not the only killer out in the fog.

Philip Ojomo. Entry  14,583

I am afraid.

I may have made a terrible mistake.

I have always thought—believed—that these souls I hunt, I hunt rightly. The Spirit showed me its power, explained this place, its purpose—my purpose.  It gave me the sickle to cut them down, from the bones of the man I killed as a first step to undoing everything I had been tricked into doing. I must be losing my mind, I can’t be wrong.  I can hear the Spirit even now, whispering to me that it was not wrong, asking me why I hesitated today, condemning me, reminding me of my duty, I hear too many things to argue with and I know it must be right, but.

The girl today. The small one who reminds me the most of myself, often wears an apron. She looked up into my face today and when I looked back I saw myself. I saw the way I felt when Azarov sliced a man’s throat not ten feet away from me, and I realized how I’d been used, what he’d really done. Looking at a monster. I have seen them look scared, and focused, and relieved, but never anything like this. She looked into my face and she was angry, and hurt, and not only against me but righteously so.  I don’t understand, I don’t know what to do, I didn’t know what to do.

I froze up, I let them go—all four.  I must have stood there for a solid fifteen minutes, trying to think, trying to understand anything. I doubt I will ever forget this encounter, but for the sake of chronicling, I had caught her and she had been unhooked by the boy with glasses. I chased them both and downed him. She came back to try and save him, even though she must have known it was impossible. I guess now that I think about it, that isn’t such uncommon behavior for them. They are often good to each other, I simply never cared. Gods, I didn’t even think about it. Why? Why did I not?

She stayed with him and looked me in the eye when I would have killed her.

I didn’t know they had names. I never thought to care.

They do, hers is Claudette, and whatever life they lead outside of these endless trials, the boy who rescued her knew her well enough to know it, and to tell her to leave him and save herself.

They never talk around me, not even to communicate. They must know I would hear them. It has been so long since I have heard anyone talk.

How am I supposed to go on?

They came back to stare at me, after I thought they had left.  One of them started to get close, and I was afraid he might try to talk to me, so I chased him off. I didn’t know what else to do.

Maybe I should have tried to talk to him.

But I can’t, can I?  This is all wrong, it doesn’t matter how they act or if they have names, or what they look like and feel.  The gods have seen who they are and declared this punishment, I am the reaper.  I.

Shit, I don’t know.

They look like kids. What could kids who act like this have possibly done to deserve to be killed by me, again and again, forever?

If this is right, how could she look at me like that?

 

* * *

 

 

“No offense,” Feng said, reaching out to warm her hands by the campfire, “but it seems like you are overthinking this.”

“I’m not,” Dwight shot back, a little more snappy than he intended. He ran his fingers through his hair nervously and took a seat.

He’d been pacing around the campfire for almost an hour. They were all there right now. Quentin, Kate, David, and Feng had been out on another trial when they arrived, but Nea, Ace, and Laurie had been waiting, so Dwight had had to tell the story twice. Now the whole group was breaking together, trying to figure out how to respond to the Wraith.

“I dunno,” Nea commented, her mouth full of some mush Claudette had made out of plants in the forest which tasted sort of like oatmeal.  “It’s at least interesting.”

“Okay, sure,” Feng rejoined, “but you want to intentionally put yourself in danger next time you see the Wraith just to figure out what is going on with it? Be glad you got an easy trial. If you go in expecting it to happen again, you’re gonna get wrecked.”

“It’s not that simple,” Meg groaned from where she was lying on the ground, ballcap pulled over her eyes. She had been trying to sleep, but nobody would shut up. “It’s not so much that we care what’s going on with the Wraith, but more like if we could figure out how to do it again, that’d be fly as hell.”

Jake nodded, then went back to whittling a long stick into something like a spear point using a sharp rock he’d found.

“No, I get what you mean—you think because Dwight hit it on the head, and it shut down for a while, maybe that means he hit some weak spot we never found before,” Feng replied, “But come on, we have done this so many times. Do you really think we wouldn’t have seen this before? Probably just a fluke,” Feng sad. “I mean, he sounds like he basically glitched for about ten minutes.”

“Didn’t follow me,” Jake commented without looking up. The others turned to look at him. “When we ran off,” he added.

“Yes, exactly,” Dwight said, pointing at Jake. “If it was like he just kind of broke for a second, then why did he stop chasing us out?”

“Well, that could be because it was futile,” Nea replied, still eating, “but I like where your head’s at. What exactly do you want to try?”

“If we get close enough to talk to him, that’s close enough for him to kill us,” Claudette added thoughtfully.

“We could leave notes,” Kate suggested. “Something for him to find? If we left stuff on the generators he’d be sure to see it.”

“You really want to try and make friends with one of these things?” Laurie had been quiet for a long time now, tapping her fingers nervously on her knees. Whatever she’d been thinking through, she’d thought it.  She looked around the campfire now. “One of the things that has been hunting us, and killing us, I mean, are you out of your mind? It’s a monster. It’s killed you Dwight, how many times? People—things like that? They don’t change, they don’t always have reasons for why they act like they act, and any time you try to show them mercy or compassion, they just use it against you.”

None of them really knew what Laurie’s life had been like before she came here, but something about what she said made Quentin look pained.

“I’m not talking about making friends. I just want to know why it acted like that, in case we can use it,” Dwight said slowly.

“I mean, after Feng shut down your weak spot theory, I did kind of think this was operation befriend the monster,” Nea interjected, taking another bite of her porridge, “but maybe that’s just me, go on.”

“It’s not that,” Dwight replied, exhausted, “It’s not either. We don’t know what it is yet, and that’s the point.  Look, I know we don’t have much to go on, I know this is crazy, and it sucks, but, look around.”

He gestured to the group before him and they did. At each other, worn faces, new scars. At the terrain, the trees, the fire, the smoky sky.

Dwight stood up again and turned to face the semicircle. “We’ve all been through this hell what, 10,000 times? And nothing—nothing has ever changed.”

That hit home.

“Until now,” Dwight finished.  He looked around at them. 

It was funny, when all this had started, they’d been more like accomplices than anything. Enemy of my enemy is my friend. But now?  Now things had changed.  He’d never really been part of any club or group growing up. An only child, he’d not even been that close to his family.  So, he didn’t have much to compare it too.  He imagined it was a little like family, if his Aunts and Uncles hadn’t been stretched out across the country.  Maybe what cousins were like.  Didn’t really matter what it was.  He’d become leader back when he first ran into Jake, Claudette, and Meg mostly because no one had objected, and he was pretty damn good at surviving. That might have always been his only real skill. It hadn’t been because they trusted him, or believed in him, or because he really wanted to protect them—well, he did, but like, in the way you would tell a person in a grocery store parking lot to watch out because a stray cart was about to hit them. Not for any real reason. It was weird, but in a way, he felt like he’d not been a real person before all this. Like even though he was pretty sure they were all dead already, he’d never been alive before this endless hell loop had started. He liked being a leader; he liked being there for people. It felt real.

“We all want to get out of here alive, and together,” Dwight continued after a few seconds of silence, “and is the first really new thing we’ve seen—it’s weird, and different, and definitely dangerous, and maybe nothing, and yes,” he looked at Feng and Laurie, “probably stupid. But getting really fucked up in a couple of trials sounds well worth it to me if it means even a small chance we could have a real shot out of here. Isn’t that what you all think too? What you want? A chance, any chance?”

They looked at him, and at each other. Quentin pushed off the tree he was leaning against and faced Dwight.

“Okay, so what do you want us to do?”

 

* * *

 

 _Ah, damn it, it had to be me._ Feng Min took a deep breath. She could hear the heartbeat radius near her—the aura of fear all the monsters exuded. She let go of the wires she was trying to hotwire and slowly backed away from her generator, keeping her head down.  _Just keep cool, keep slow, get out._

She slid behind a nearby brick wall and waited. It only took another two seconds for the Killer to appear around the corner, towering over her generator. It was the Trapper. Of course it was. He flipped his blade expertly in his hand as he looked around for signs of who’d been on the nearly repaired generator. She watched as he raised a gigantic booted foot and brought it crashing down on all her hard work.  As he did, a generator somewhere to their right went off, and the Trapper took off towards it with the steady pace of something that knew it was about to kill.

_Bitch._

She especially disliked him. His stupid ass grin on his stupid ass mask. He thought he was some real hot shit.

 _Well, at least my competitive spirit is alive and well,_ Feng thought, sliding back out from behind the wall and creeping back to her generator. She heard a scream in the distance.  It sounded like Jake.  _Run, buddy._

Something bumped her shoulder in a friendly manner. If she hadn’t been so used to Nea pulling that dumb crap at this point she would have screamed on instinct. Now getting tapped on the shoulder in intense situations de-stressed her, like some pavlovian reverse of what should be.

Feng turned and gave the red-flannel clad girl a nod. Nea winked, and started adjusting gears on the gen.  They head Jake’s voice again, and Nea looked at Feng and winced. Feng nodded. 

_Poor fool._

Jake and David were both really good target focuses.  Nea and Meg too.  God bless the four of them, they often took Killer focus in rounds.  Jake and Nea had played rock, paper, scissors on their way in and Jake had lost.

Their gen lit up, and Nea booked it away, crouched and silent.

 _I really, really need to learn that,_ Feng thought, following as quickly as she could while crouched. Nea had been teaching her in between trials, but she was still so much slower. _Damn video games. You made me so smart and good at fixing things, but look what you did to my quads._

Ahead she saw Nea stop and hold up a hand. She stopped too. Nea carefully skirted a bear trap almost completely invisible in the weeds, pointedly motioning to it before moving on. Feng followed suit, careful to avoid the deathtrap.

It wasn’t long before they were on another gen together, working silently. They heard  Jake’s voice fade in the distance. _Crafty bastard got away. Nice,_ Feng thought, smiling to herself. She and Nea were about to light up their second gen when another gen far, far to the north came on. It couldn’t have been more than three seconds later when, even at what must have been a great distance, they heard Kate scream in pain. Feng fought the urge to flinch sympathetically. Nea glanced towards where they’d heard Kate and bit her lip, then re-focused on the gen.

It only took about thirty seconds for them to see Kate up on a hook, struggling.

 _Sorry, Kate,_ Feng thought, looking at her figure in the distance. She and Nea lit up their gen.

Nea indicated Kate with her head, asking if they should try to save her. Before Feng could reply, they saw Jake crest the hill in the distance and pull her off the hook. Nea nodded at Feng and they kept going towards the nearest generator, trying to keep their heads down. They weren’t even halfway to the generator when they heard Kate shout again and saw the entity descending from the sky to take her. Both of them shuddered involuntarily as they watched the monstrous talons pulling her husk up into the sky.

_One down. Three to go._

This also meant the Trapper might be roaming gens again, not chasing Jake. They’d lost sight of him.

Feng almost bumped into Nea, who had stopped moving. She was still looking up at where Kate’s body had vanished. Feng tapped her on the shoulder and she nodded, and both girls kept going.

They were almost on the gen when, in the distance, the two of them saw Jake and the Trapper appear on the upper ledge of one of the buildings, uncomfortably close. Jake was still nursing a wound on his back but it wasn’t slowing him down much. He vaulted over a windowsill, and then leapt off the upper ledge. Both of them watched silently as Jake hit the ground with a pained grunt, rolled with the force, and came up running despite the nearly twenty-foot fall.

As the Trapper leapt down after him, Nea carefully pulled herself over a windowsill, eyes on Jake and the Killer. The second she touched the ground Feng heard an all-too familiar shriek and the snap of meatal tearing into bone as the beartrap snapped tight on Nea’s leg.

_Oh no, no, no, no._

Throwing caution to the wind, Feng stood up and ran to Nea, skirting the side of the brick wall, just barely missing a bear trap herself. As she rounded the corner, she looked towards the house and saw the Trapper turn away from Jake and start heading for them. She had seconds.

Feng reached Nea’s side and saw the mess of steel teeth and gored flesh. One of the metal prongs was embedded in the bone. Blood was oozing from the raw chunks of flesh which hung limply where they’d been torn, and Nea was struggling desperately to force the jaws open with her fingertips, already slick with her own blood.

Feng helped her as they heard the audible terror given off by the Trapper approaching. Slicing one of her own fingers open on the sharp, rust covered metal, she tugged as hard as she could and heard the mechanism give. Nea managed to snatch her foot out of the trap just before it shut again. Feng grabbed her arm and pulled her up as the Trapper rounded the corner.

They ran, Nea doing her best to keep up on a mangled leg, vaulting over windows and ducking behind walls, trying to dodge and weave. They hit a brick wall and Nea went left, Feng went right. She looked over her shoulder and saw the Trapper turn after Nea—of course he would, she was easy prey.

Beneath her, Feng felt the crack of metal colliding with bone and yelled in pain as she went down.

Everything throbbed and she was already woozy with blood loss as she picked herself up off the dirt and desperately tried to open the jaws digging through her calf, severing flesh and muscle alike, and letting tiny chunks of both drip down the sides of her leg along with the bright red blood.

 _No, no, no._ Feng tried to pry the beartrap open—so much harder than it had been when it was around someone else’s leg. She’d been in these things hundreds of times, but she was still fighting the urge to vomit at the sight of a bodypart her old brain knew would never fully recover despite the way her new brain knew, in this place, it would.

She saw him coming, the Trapper, slow and deliberate. He knew she was screwed.

_Grinning fucking asshole!_

Feng desperately struggled, renewed by spite. The machine started to give way. The Trapper closed the distance in one large stride and drove his blade through her gut, pinning her to the ground.  She bit her tongue to keep from crying out, because she knew that was what he wanted. She looked up into his big, grinning eyes and could tell he recognized her. He was happy, grinning himself beneath the mask as he twisted the knife. Her intestines tore, letting stomach acid leak where the metal cleaver ripped them apart.  She bit through her tongue and felt the blood start to run down her cheek. He twisted the blade again and she heard something in her back tear and she couldn’t hold it back anymore.

Feng let out what should have been a shriek, but came out as a pained gurgle as she choked on her own blood.

He leaned in close to her face, applying more pressure to the blade. Somewhere past him, she saw Jake trying to get close. Nea was knocking something over, trying to draw him away. _Idiots. Big sweet dummies._ _Didn’t they know that sometimes you have a match you can’t win. Sometimes you aren’t good enough. To keep going. To live._

She looked at them, Jake was getting close. Nea was digging desperately though a chest, probably hoping for a flashlight.

 _No, you don’t know, do you? Sometimes you just lose and get fucked and that’s it. There isn’t always a good end no matter how much you want it, you,_ Feng looked up into the big grinning mask of blood and teeth and smirking pride she hated above all, _ah fuck it._ She spat a mouthful of blood into his face.

Nea and Jake watched as the Trapper pulled his blade back out of Feng and brought it down in the middle of her skull.

 

“Shit.” Jake was breathing hard, but quiet, back pressed against a stone wall as he bandaged Nea’s leg. They’d lost him, but the Trapper was close. They could hear him. Jake held his breath as the sound of a heartbeat got intensely loud; he saw Nea do the same.

He kept passing, though. In a few seconds he was away. Jake saw him come into view far to the left as his terror abated.

“Fourth time in a row he’s just straight killed her,” Jake viewed, face unreadable.

“He’s pissed,” Nea said, voice low. She looked hardened. For a second she glanced back in the direction of Feng’s body.  “She keeps kicking his ass with the gens. He only gets anybody every other or so now.”

“She should quit pissing him off so much,” Jake said, tying the gauze and straightening. “It makes it impossible for me to do my job.”

Nea was still looking toward where Feng had fallen. After a second she slowly turned her head back towards Jake. “Pretty badass though.”

He looked at her for a second, and she grinned. The smile died after a moment and she looked grim again.

“Okay, come on, one gen left.” Nea started forward, crouched

“Sure thing,” Jake replied, watching her take a few steps.

When he didn’t follow, she paused to look back at him. He just shook his head as if forgetting something and crouched to join her.

One generator later, they both slipped through the hatch.


	3. Amaranth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief journal of some advice and some worries.

It’s been I think about two days since the Wraith let us go. We still haven’t run into him again. It’s been nothing but bad trials for us. We keep getting Shape, Nightmare, and Trapper back to back, and those three have it out specifically for Quentin, Laurie and Feng.  Laurie’s almost never making it out.  The rest of us tend to do okay if the Shape spends the whole time chasing her, but it’s still miserable. On top of that, sometimes he saves her for last and chases after everyone but her. He’s scary. Feng pointed out that as silent as he is, he breathes like Darth Vader, so that helps, but he’s still deadly. Way too mobile. If he gets Laurie early or comes after the rest of us first, we usually all go down. She’s trying to teach us to stab him with sharp pieces of wood or rock while being carried around, but it’s harder than it sounds.

Feng keeps going up against the Trapper—it has to be on purpose at this point. I think he hates her as much as she hates him. He loves hurting people even more than killing them; he’s one of the nastiest ones.  Worse, he keeps killing people instead of hooking them. This is new—it’s not the first time, but it’s happening more and more.  I’m really worried. He only seems to do it once per trial, but he keeps on targeting just Feng, over and over and over.  Feng’s resilient and strong and really smart, and also competitive, but she’s getting worn down by this grind. I think it’s been almost a solid month of the Trapper personally having it out for her.

I can tell Nea is worried too. She doesn’t say it, but she keeps trying to be nice and joke with Feng, get her to teach her generator tips, and in exchange training her how to move faster while sneaking. I think it’s working—I hope it is. She’ll laugh every so often when Nea tells a really good joke and seem almost okay again, but it never lasts long.

I think Quentin is doing a little better. He actually prefers being in trials with the Nightmare over other people being there without him. I think it’s because he feels kind of responsible, as ridiculous as that is. He’s been doing his best, and somehow he starts every trial acting like he’s going to win, even after all the times he’s died. It’s been really good for us to have him join the group. He gives the rest of us hope.

I don’t know what to do for Laurie. She’s solitary. I’ve seen David trying to get her to trade self-defense tips to get her to socialize, but it isn’t working. I wish I was better at this, I wish I knew how to help. All I’m good at is fixing cuts, not making people feel better.

I’m sorry, future reader, that this entry probably won’t help you much.  I know that usually I journal to record helpful tips about plants and strategy, and anything else I can think of that might someday help someone else.  I’m sorry I keep doing this instead. More and more lately I think I’ve just been journaling for the sake of journaling.  It helps.  I don’t know why, but it does.  It’s like talking out loud to yourself while you garden to work stuff out, except that I can’t really do that here, because I’m always either with people, or alone in a trial, and in the later it’d be too dangerous, and in the former I’d be too embarrassed.

In helpful news for the day, I’ve figured out that there are several groupings of Amaranth nearby.  It looks a little bit like wheat, corn, or corral. I’m including a drawing to help specify. It comes in purple when blooming, but may appear orange or yellow-green at times during ripening.

The seeds rest in the tassel (the part which looks like a flower). Usually shaking the tassel will make a few seeds fall.  To collect the seeds, cut the tassels from the plant (purple-red when ripe) and put them in a cloth container (you can use a shirt) and shake to free the seeds. Alternatively, if you've got something like a bucket, you can put the tassels there and rub the seeds free with your fingers.  These seeds can be crushed and used like wheat to make meals and flour.  I've found that they make a pretty good oatmeal base.  Good luck, and keep your head up.  There’s always a way to get through it together.

-Claudette Morel


	4. Compulsion and Nature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The survivors finally encounter the Wraith again, but it isn't what any of them expect.

_Autohaven, the gas station too._ Jake thought, adjusting his eyes to the terrain that he’d just materialized in.  _Maybe he’s finally back._

Jake crouched and started walking. Favored terrain didn’t always mean favored enemy. He’d been stabbed by the Pig here before one too many times.

It took him a minute of crawling past junk to see a gen through one of the gas station’s windows. _Okay, not too shabby._

He slipped up to the window and turned to scan his field of vision before standing up to climb in—always paid to be safe.  Coast was clear.

As Jake started to climb in the window, he suddenly had the elevation to see through the opposite window into the autoyard, and he stopped with one leg through and barely grabbed the edge of the windowsill in time to keep from losing his balance and pitching out backwards.  Not thirty yards away the Wraith was standing on one of the hills, unmoving, in clear line of sight.

Jake froze wedged up in the window. The Wraith wasn’t facing him or turned away—he was in its periphery.  _Ah shit. Be cool, be super cool._

He waited in the window for a few seconds, holding his breath. When it didn’t seem to notice him, Jake ever so slowly lowered himself inside the gas station.  Still nothing.

Jake edged towards the far window, careful and slow, and stuck his head out, trying to see what the Wraith was looking at.  It was holding its sickle in both hands like someone might hold a ruler or an armful of firewood.  It didn’t seem to be looking at anything.  After a moment it turned and looked behind itself, out over the yard, then back at the exit gate it had been staring past before.  After taking its glance around, the Wraith did something Jake had never seen one of the monsters do before: it very slowly crossed one leg in front of the other and folded in on itself, lowering until it was sitting cross-legged on the ground, weapon in its lap.

 _Whooo boy. Guess we did break him. Huh,_ Jake observed. He hoped through the window and strolled over to the hill. He looked up at the Wraith’s back for a few seconds, then circled around to the front and stood at the base of the little hill.

As soon as the Wraith saw Jake standing at the base of the hill it looked up at him, almost startled, and pulled itself back to its feet.

 _Interesting._ Jake took a cautious step up onto the path, and then looked up at the Wraith to see how it would react. It blinked and took a step back.  _No shit, woah,_ Jake thought, taking another step and looking up again to see if it would work a second time. It did. The Wraith took another step back. _Quit acting afraid of me,_ Jake thought as he took two more steps, _You’re a big monster, what do you think I’m gonna do?_

It backed up one more step and found itself at the edge of the hill.

 _That’s what long legs get you,_ Jake thought to himself, _you forgot how to take small steps after chasing us around too much._

The Wraith turned its head a little to look over its shoulder, then it looked back at Jake. It took a step forward and raised its sickle at him like it was going to hit him.

 _Nice try buddy, but you should have led with a bluff if you wanted that to work._ Jake made eye contact and took another step up the hill—a big one this time.

The Wraith swung the sickle in his direction menacingly and took another step forward.

 _Hmmmmm._   Jake took another two steps. He looked up at it again.

It looked incredulous. How dare he keep coming to bother it?  It took another swing at him, lung this time, just narrowly missing.

Jake called the bluff and didn’t more or flinch as the metal whistled harmlessly past his nose, just barely nicking it. The Wraith blinked at him again and clenched the fist that wasn’t wrapped around its blade.

“I’m Jake,” said Jake, not moving as tiny drops of blood slipped down the cut on his nose.

The Wraith said nothing, it just looked at him. If he hadn’t known better, Jake could have sworn it looked panicked. 

Jake tilted his head and looked the Wraith up and down.  “So,” he asked, looking it in the face again, “what happened to you?”

It took a sudden step forward and shoved him backwards over the side of the hill. Completely unprepared, Jake pinwheeled and slammed onto the ground ten feel below on his back.

_Ow._

He lay there for a second looking up, and saw the Wraith lean over the edge of the hill and look down at him, an indescribable expression on its face as they made eye contact.

Three generators lit up at the same time and the Wraith turned to look back out at the cars. When he looked back over the edge of the hill, Jake was gone. The Wraith blinked and turned in a circle to look, but he’d vanished completely. Even with its tracking skills, there was nothing to see.

 _Maybe I should not have done that,_ Phillip thought slowly, looking back over the edge of the hill. _I panicked._

He was pretty sure the boy had been fine, though. He sat back down on the hill and tried to slow his breathing again.  He had had a long time to plan what he’d do the next time he saw the souls in a trial, but it had all gone out the window the second the trial started. He’d been so determined to go back to the way things had been.  The Spirit had spoken to him, reassuring him, challenging him, condemning his lapse in judgement. He could see through its eyes, feel its desire to hunt them.  It reminded him of their bargain, of his debt, of his own desire for revenge.  He was hunting those who had earned it, and he knew it, he believed it.  But the second he’d been back in the junkyard he’d seen the face of that man in the trunk in his head, and the look on the girl’s face when he’d been about to kill her, and the way the boy with glasses had gripped her wrist, trying to force her to run while his blood pooled around him and soaked through his white shirt.  Phillip had worn a shirt like that when he worked here.

It was too much, it hurt to think.

Even now, he could hear the Spirit whispering, hissing, angry. “Go, kill them, are you not the reaper? You let them walk free? Do you know what you bring on yourself, the kinds of monstrous humans you are allowing to escape? Coward, weak, Wraith. A worthless killer, you only hunt the innocent for Azarov? You lose your taste for vengeance, for justice? Miserable creature, are you so wretched as to fail even at this?”

The words had a bite to them, venom in each syllable, and they hurt his head. Every time the voice spoke it was like taking a blow. He could feel the fury in the Iska mounting.

 _I can’t,_ Phillip thought. _I can’t, I’m sorry. I don’t know why._

This only made it more furious. He held his head in his hands as the pounding continued.  He heard another generator go off, and then another. He was vaguely aware, past the screaming of the Spirit and the pain, of the sound of an exit gate opening.

He looked up when he heard footsteps. He didn’t want to appear weak in front of them.  Phillip pulled himself to his feet as the group of four rounded the corner and took off for the gate right in front of him.

 _Smart of them to open the other gate before coming here,_ Phillip thought absently. He wished they would leave him alone.

It was the boy from earlier, the older man in the grey suit, the man who liked to fight, and the girl from his last trial—Claudette. The one in the suit pulled the switch on the gate in front of the hill, and the Wraith watched them. He thought he should probably chase them off, because if he didn’t they might try to talk to him again. Why was he so afraid of that? 

The boy—Jake—was talking with the other three too quietly to be heard, but he kept looking at Phillip.

He could hear the Spirit screaming in his head, too much to comprehend. Philip resisted the urge to grab his head this time. He tried to face the pain. Suddenly, the jumble of words and hatred became crystal clear and Philip felt something slam into his body like he’d been hit by a car.

“GO,” screamed the Spirit, “DO NOT LET THEM MOCK YOU, LOOK.”

A wave off pain washed over Phillip, crushing him, and his vision changed. A sheen of red-purple light descended on everything, and the forms grew sharper, details shifted. He saw black pits glowing beneath the skin on the people before him where their hearts should be, like they had voids in their chests. The terrain was darker, more shadowy, and he involuntarily took a step back.  Somehow the figures who had looked entirely mundane to him a moment ago looked threatening, and horrible. Smirking, planning, malicious. He tried to shake his head to clear his vision but it didn’t change. Everything was vaguely covered in a red-purple tint with the new light, and as he looked around, he saw blood begin to leak out of the piles of crushed cars around him. Phillip felt his breath catch and his pulse quicken. There were voices then, too, and wavy figures—half ghosts, fading in and out of the light.  “See them truly,” hissed the Spirit, “do not be fooled weak Reaper. Take up your blade and fulfill your promise; you are death for me. Prove it, or give in.”

Phillip looked at the four people beneath him. He could hear the gate about to open. One of them looked up at him, a sickening grin across his face.

Phillip raised his sickle and leapt down from the hill.

It took the four below him a second to realize what was happening. He swung and caught the one in the grey suit across the chest, the force of the blow knocking him against the still closed doors.

Phillip spun on his heel and caught the fighter deep in his left shoulder as he turned at the sound of his friend’s scream, and just as fast turned the blade on the girl. She raised an arm to try and shield herself, and the teeth of his sickle sliced deep into her forearm by the wrist and she feel backwards onto the ground.

In one fluid motion, Phillip turned the blade on the boy called Jake, who fell flat to avoid the swing and rolled, coming back up just out of reach and facing him, hands up palm out and body taught like he was trying to decide between fleeing and waiting to see what the Wraith would do next.  The other three bolted, and as Jake saw them take off behind the Wraith, he turned and ran too. Phillip’s sickle caught him in the back as he leapt over a ledge.

The dash to the far exit was intense. Phillip felt something stronger and more sharp than adrenaline in his system, it was like his blood had become gasoline, burning him inside and propelling him forward.  He leapt over windowsills at a speed he’d never known, like he was the wind itself. The four in front of him were frantic, tearing for the open exit blindly, throwing down obstacles and leaping low fences in a panic. His vision kept flickering, disorienting him, and then refocusing him on the figures ahead—outlining them for him as if their rotting souls glowed. He closed the distance between himself and the slowest of the pack, the one in the grey suit, and swung. The girl was suddenly between him and the older man, and her blindingly ember-glowing form took the blow in the chest and went down.

Phillip heard a crackle from something deep in his head and kept running, furious like he hadn’t been in months at the thought of losing his prey, but he tripped and pitched forward, stumbling. He looked behind himself and saw the girl had grabbed his ankle as he passed. His anger became irrational and for a second it was like he couldn’t see at all as it bubbled. Overflowing with rage, he let out a yell which sounded feral and monstrous and pulled himself up and kept going. The other three had reached the exit but hesitated—they often were reluctant to leave without their whole group—pride—pettiness. The anger and hatred in his body were burying him deep beneath them, fighting for release. He could hear the ghosts around him whispering his name, accusations, calling for pity, mercy, justice. Blood leaking from the stacks of crushed cars made the entire ground like a slick red mirror. His sensations were all heightened and delayed and muffled at the same time—the only things that were clear were the outlines of the humans in front of him.

He lashed out blindly at one, the boy, catching him in the chest. One of the other men caught him and dragged him past the boundary back towards the campfire, leaving the Wraith unable to pursue them.  He screamed and lunged, trying to chase after, only to be met by the Entity’s black stakes cutting him off and barring his way the like a prison door. He reached an arm through and swung as they ran, overwhelmed with his rage at losing them.

He heard a faint whisper in the air and remembered the girl then. He turned and looked for her. She had crawled towards the exit on her own; she was only about fifteen feet away from the gate’s entrance. He walked slowly towards her and saw her look up at him as he approached.

He saw that she was trembling as he stood over her and looked down. He couldn’t make out her expression through the haze. His anger made any other emotion impossible past itself. The girl raised a shaky hand up towards him and he heard her speak, muffled as all sound was.

“Please,” her voice was faint, as if he was hearing her from underwater. “Please don’t.”

Phillip twitched. He tried to reach down to pick her up but his body wouldn’t move. A shudder ran down his whole frame and he tried again. He looked at his unresponsive arms and noticed they were shaking.

He reached again for her but again his arms refused. He realized he was trying not to reach for her. Everything was so confusing and the red-purple glow got stronger. Phillip’s head ached. His vision flickered and for a second the familiar blue tint was over the world and the ground wasn’t slick with blood, and he could see that the girl on the ground before him was crying silently, shaking in fear.

Phillip looked at his hands. There were covered in blood.

Something hit the inside of his skull like a brick and the world was purple-red again, and he couldn’t see her so well. Everything was blurry and the rage inside him was taking over again. He heard a distorted half-choked sob come from her.

Phillip closed his eyes and fell to his knees, trying to shut it all out. He flung his blade off somewhere to his left and gripped his head with both hands. The pounding was deafening.

_What did I do?_

Phillip reached out with his right hand until he could feel a low wall of crushed car cubes he’d been vaguely aware of. He gripped the structure firmly and rammed his head into it, again and again and again until he felt the blood running down his forehead, and the pain outside his skull was sharp enough to drown out the screaming inside it.

His breath ragged and short, Phillip let go of the row of car parts and fell forward, catching himself with one hand, using it to support his weight.

It was quiet.

Somewhere to his left, he heard a quiet sound like a whimper.

He’d forgotten the girl.

Phillip started to open his eyes and a wave of fear washed over him. _No, don’t!_ came his thoughts in a panic, _You’ll lose control again!_

Very slowly, Phillip half crawled towards the sound, propping himself up with one arm and feeling for her with the other blindly. His cold fingers felt the thick slick warm of fresh blood and traced it back to an arm. He felt her skin flinch the second his reached it, and she tried to pull away.

Very slowly, eyes still shut tight, Phillip balanced himself on his knees. He held up one hand palm out, hoping to in some small way reassure her. His other hand followed the arm up to her shoulder and down her back until he found her waist. She let out a little cry and he felt her weakly trying to crawl away. She was never going to make it. His memory served him well, and he knew from over a thousand trials that she had less than a minute before she bled out. Phillip moved his legs up and crouched over Claudette. Doing his best to work quickly blind without hurting her worse, he wrapped his arms around her waist and hoisted her into the air, carrying her awkwardly—like a rug. He could feel her legs kick weakly at his for a second as she was lifted off the ground. The poor thing was already almost dead. She wasn’t going to be a problem.

The blood from his forehead was dripping down his chest now. _Probably getting on her,_ Phillip thought, feeling for some illogical reason especially terrible about that in particular. He shifted her weight over to his left arm and clutched her tightly to his chest—easy enough a load to bear with one arm, and used the other to blindly feel his way towards the exit. It was slow, choppy going, and he knew she didn’t have long, but he was too afraid to open his eyes. He felt immense relief wash over him as his fingers found the steel of the exit gate’s frame and he carried her past it.  He kept going until his fingers were met by the cold black spikes he knew barred him from the campfire. Phillip realized the body in his arms had stopped struggling and felt the pit of his stomach drop.

Phillip slowly turned his head to the side, listening for sounds of life. He was rewarded with faint, shallow breathing. _Thank gods._

Gently as he could, Phillip adjusted his weight for better leverage, then tossed Claudette past the barrier. He heard her body hit the ground outside with a quiet thud.

He knew she would be fine. They healed instantly after making it out. And yet, he waited, needing confirmation. Phillip was still too afraid to open his eyes, but he stayed put, unmoving, waiting for the sound of her regaining her feet and running away back to the temporary safety of her campfire.

The sound didn’t come.

Phillip swallowed. The urge to open his eyes was almost as strong as the fear keeping them shut. He kept listening, straining, but there was nothing.

“Thank you.”

The voice was close—he hadn’t heard her stand or breathe—he’d forgotten how quiet she could be, but when she spoke the girl couldn’t have been more than a few inches past the barrier.

For some reason, the gratitude stung more than anything Phillip had been hit by that day. His breath caught in his throat and he felt something unfamiliar catch in his chest, burning and aching. It took him a second to realize his body was trying to cry.  It had been so long that it had forgotten how.

Something touched his face and he jerked back on instinct.

“You’re hurt too,” came the voice. Around him, Phillip felt the change in the terrain. He could tell the world of the trial was about to disappear and he would be back in the woods alone in a moment.  “Here.”

Something brushed against his hand, and Phillip pulled back out of her reach.

“Please, take it.”  She sounded genuinely concerned. That hurt far too much.

He didn’t want it, he didn’t want her help or her pity, or her forgiveness, he didn’t deserve it. It was unbearable.

But somewhere much deeper he did, he did want it. He needed it. He was afraid—he was so afraid that if he didn’t take it she would never offer it again, and he would never be anything like okay. Be anything but the thing he’d been a few minutes ago, the thing that scared him. Maybe he was already too lost.

Without his permission, his shaking hand reached out on its own and turned over, palm up. He felt the softness of a cloth between his fingers.

Then everything disappeared.

Phillip felt grass beneath his feet and the call of birds. He closed his fist around the cloth.  A roll of gauze.

 

* * *

 

 

“Oh damn,” Meg said, looking up as David, Jake, and Ace burned into existence as one, shouting over eachother and mid an incomprehensible jumble of sentences. “The hell happened to you?”

“We left Claudette,” Jake replied.

“The Wraith was pulling off some weird act—he almost killed all four of us,” Ace added, doubled over and breathing hard.

“Wait, what?” Dwight stood up. “What happened?”

“He sat down damn near the whole match an’ then jumped us all like ah madman at the gate,” replied David. “Fkn nearly chopped Ace in half n threw him into a wall.”

“What happened to Claudette,” asked Dwight, concern and agitation fighting for primary emotion.

“Wraith got her,” Jake replied, looking angry, “she’ll probably be along soon.”

Ace sat down on the grass and rubbed his forehead.  “Fool girl took a hit for me, I shoulda gone back.”

“We tried,” Jake replied, voice cold and level, “if we’d kept going he’d have just killed all four of us.”

“So, the whole thing was an act?” Meg asked. “I mean, with the Wraith?”

“I guess,” Jake replied, plopping down on a log near Ace and tearing out a handful of dirt and chucking it mindlessly into the campfire. “He was acting weird right up until we opened the exit gates, and then he went feral on us again—but more and worse than normal. Like the fucking Hillbilly or something.” The ‘fucking’ was punctuated by another angry handful of nothing thrown into the fire.

“God,” Kate exhaled slowly.  She leaned over and put a sympathetic hand on Ace’s shoulder.

Dwight sat back down and ran his fingers through his hair. Agitation had won. _Shit, shit, shit. I really thought we had something._

Claudette burned back into reality and everyone turned to look at her, her three previous companions some combination of pained, concerned, and guilty.

She beamed at them.

Meg glanced from Claudette to Jake, to Ace, to David.  “Uh?”

Dwight looked up in surprise. “Claudette?”

Claudette ran past the campfire and threw herself at Jake and Ace, putting an arm around each and pulling them into a death-grip hug. Ace stared at Claudette and Jake gave the others a startled look like they might know what to do about this.  Claudette let go of them after a second and turned towards David and the others, almost laughing. “You guys are never gonna believe this!”

“Yeah, like shit, probably not,” Nea replied, ending the astounded silence that followed her proclamation, “but go off.”


	5. The Basement

“Oh, Philip.”

The voice echoed around the basement, disappointed but readied—taught like a drawn bowstring. 

Philip had materialized in a basement. Between trials, they usually went to the woods—him and the other hunters.  They didn’t interact much, and none of them had been placed together, but they could often see each other in the distance, stalking around their territory. Generally, there would be a house of some kind for them in the woods, and it would have a basement. Philip didn’t know what anyone else’s dwelling looked like. His was a hollowed-out husk of what looked and felt like the old garage at Autohaven. The place he had worked sometimes, fixing up cars.  It offered little protection, but there were no storms here so it hardly mattered. 

He could tell it was his basement, but he could also tell something was wrong as soon as he’d appeared there.

Eyes still closed and blood still slowly running down his face, Philip walked up the steps to leave and his open palm felt cool concrete blocking his way.

A shudder ran down his spine. Slowly, Philip opened his eyes.  The stairway had been blocked off, cool concrete, like the upstairs had never even been.

He felt fear pool in the pit of his stomach. He wondered if this was how his victims had felt the times they’d been rushing up the stairs only to see him waiting at the top. Trapped. In the basement.

His vision had returned to normal at least, and the fury and hatred that had been boiling over moments ago were just memories, but his left hand was still wrapped around a roll of gauze. He looked down at it and blinked. _All this time. All this time, and this is what it took for me to be able to see._

His right hand let go of the wall and clenched until his fingernails dug into his palm.

Philip sat down on the steps and slowly wrapped his head with the bandage and tied it.  Then, he waited. Looking at the blood on his hands and what was left of the roll of gauze. 

 

It wasn’t long. “Oh, Philip,” came the whisper in the air, “What have you done?”

Philip stood up, suddenly acutely aware that he did not have hick sickle. Not that it would have mattered anyway.

“I’m done,” Philip said to the ceiling, where a black fog was starting to gather.  “No more of this. I won’t hunt them.”

“You do not seek justice? You would give up your soul, your chance to undo the debts you owe for the innocents you have slain, for these wicked mortals? Spit in the face of mercy, of purpose, vengeance, all that you have been given?” It asked, silky and smooth. The words became corporeal in the air and wrapped around his throat like wafts of smoke as thick as rope, and Philip shoved the fog aside with his hand.

“What did you do to me?” He took a step forward, then another, eye still on the thing in the ceiling. “I lost control.”

“You embraced your calling and it gave you power,” replied the voice. “I did nothing but give you the power to do that to yourself.”

“Embrace my calling?” Philip took an incredulous step into the room, towards the center of the black cloud above him. “My calling to hunt these—these children? What could they have done to deserve this—me? Why won’t you tell me? What are you hiding?”

“It is not your place to know them,” hissed back the voice.

“Then it is not my place to kill them,” he said, taking another step into the room, voice stronger this time.

“It is your duty to obey!” the whispers snapped. “Not to question!”

“No,” he almost shouted it this time. “It is my duty to do what is right.”

“You know what will happen to you?”

Philip felt the room grow colder as the Spirit spoke, its words making the atmosphere heavy and thick around him. He felt a chill down his spine and shivered. His breath fogged and crystalized as tendrils of icy black smoke drifted past. He turned his head to look at them.

“If you choose to defy your own god? Understand me, Wraith,” the dark mist spoke, curling around the air above him, “If you disobey you will be abandoned. Another reaper will take your place, and you shall pay for the lives you have taken with your body and your soul, torn apart piece by piece, forever. This is already your second chance. You will not be given a third.”

Philip looked down at his blood-stained hands, at the depleted roll of gauze.  He looked back up.

“When I worked at Autohaven, I never questioned things, you know?”

Philip started to walk slowly as he spoke, and the darkness in the ceiling crept after him, watching, waiting, listening.

“I didn’t,” he continued.  “I knew something didn’t add up, that there were drugs being sold, things stolen maybe. I knew. But I just wanted to get by. To live.”

He ran his hand down one of the hooks hanging from the ceiling, pausing to look at it with an unreadable expression. “I wanted a roof and food, and to sometimes get to go home and do some little thing that made all of that surviving worthwhile. I wanted to be able to go to a theater some weekends, or get a drink more expensive than a beer—maybe a whole bottle to take home.” His fingers closed around the hook. “I wanted to play some music and just listen for a whole hour with no consequence, or maybe read a book. I was okay surviving.”

Philip tucked the gauze into a little pocked on his belt and looked back up at the Entity above him.

“So I never asked. I did what I was told; I was good at it.  So many people died because I was not paying attention. Because one man was evil, and another stupid.  And I have done it again. ‘The Oblivious Executioner.’ No more.” Philip leveraged his weight and tore the hook from its resting place, spinning it until it was leveled at the thing in the ceiling. “You were never my god,” Philip said coldly, watching the Entity, “No more lies! You are not my god—you are no god at all. You are some kind of demon. Admit it.”

He waited, tense and ready, watching the ceiling for movement. “Admit it!” he shouted again into the silence.

For a few more seconds there was nothing but silence. Then, laughter. Slow, and steady, and horrible.

“Oh, well done, Wraith,” came the voice, which up until this moment had never been something one could use personal adjectives to describe. It was suddenly almost individual. Haughty, bored, pleased.

Philip kept the hook at the ready, trying to see the entire ceiling at once and failing.

“Come now,” it said reproachfully, the laughter still in its voice, “did you really think this was the first time you’d figured it out?”  

Philip stopped. _Don’t listen, don’t trust it._

“Mmmmm, you do. But you have before. Oh Philip, many times,” it was very pleased now, taunting. “Benedict, Alex,” it paused, enjoying the last one, “Vigo?”

He didn’t. He didn’t have any face to put to a name. He didn’t have any memory of people other than the ones he’d been chasing since he got here. He felt a panic seep in and tried to fight it off. _No. No, it’s lying. It’s a demon, don’t listen. Stay focused._

The darkness above him laughed again, a horrible hissing sound that echoed and came from everywhere at once.  “Ah, poor Wraith. Again and again you fail, and become my reaper. None the wiser. Ah, Wraith.  Although, I admit you did remember one thing this time.”

Philip felt his breath catch as it paused.

“I was the one who called you my ‘Oblivious Executioner.’” The smile in its voice was audible. “Fancy that.”

Philip grabbed a loose stone from the floor and hurled it at the shadow above him. It laughed again as the stone harmlessly pinged off and fell back to the floor.

“No, Philip. You will not face me. You will never face me.  But I tire of dealing with you and your challenges. I want you to remember this punishment you are about to receive, the payment for questioning your god, the great Spirit who guides you. I want you to keep that caution and pain and let it burn away another piece of Philip and build another piece of Wraith.  The rest of it though, I think you’ll have to forget again.”

Philip lunged at the ceiling, leaping high enough that his hook slashed into the darkness above him and caught on something. The metal locked around one of the talons the demon had, and Philip bore down with all his weight, trying to tear it open, but the limbs were harder to the touch than steel. Another of the beast’s metallic limbs descended from the ceiling and closed around his waist as he hung there, struggling with it. It was a slow creature, but strong. Philip managed to pull himself out of its grasp once, and it reached for him a second time, puncturing his side with its talon and tugging him backwards. He lost his grip on the hook and the beast flung him at the wall.

He slammed into the concrete and hit the floor below already fighting to regain his feet. As he did, the thing above him started to fade out.

“Come back! You haven’t beaten me,” he shouted at the vanishing darkness above.

“Oh, Wraith. I beat you a long time ago,” came the whisper, back in its familiar voice. The same involuntary shudder wracked Philip’s body, and he took a step back instinctively, as if his brain was trying to warn him of something.

The wall his hand was braced against started to leak, and Philip jumped. He leaned to look and saw it was some black material—oil, the wrong color, but he immediately knew the smell. The leak suddenly exploded out, covering him, and Philip stumbled backwards, coughing and trying to get it out of his eyes.

All around the room then, leaks began across the concrete as one, dripping and then gushing oil. Philip backed up towards the stairs as the liquid crept towards his feet. The rush of oil built, and Philip’s back hit the wall blocking the stairs. The oil kept coming, until he was up to his knees in it, then his chest, then struggling to swim in it and keep his head above the black pool.

He struggled through the thick liquid up to the ceiling, and realized with a horrible feeling in his chest that it would be seconds before there was no more ceiling, no more air. He pressed his head against the roof, keeping his mouth above the black pool as long as possible, and took one final breath before there was nothing but oil and darkness all around him.

Philip held his breath as long as he could, knowing that the nightmare of oxygen-deprived burning in his lungs would get so much worse if he inhaled the mess around him. It was burning his eyes, even though they were shut tightly, mixing with the blood leaking out of his side, seeping through the bandage to the cut on his forehead, Finally, he couldn’t take it any more. He felt woozy and sick and the pressure in his lungs felt like it was going to explode, tearing and burning and begging for oxygen, and Philip gasped for breath.

The rush of inhaled oil caught in his throat and filled his lungs, making them heavy and clogged and his brain only try harder to breathe again, and again, gasping in more and more oil, choking and trying to cough and vomit and get it out, all while gasping for breath and choking on more and more of the oil. He gagged and his body heaved, trying to save itself, but it was in him now, seeping into his intestines, lodged in his lungs, the pain was unimaginable. His lungs burned and shot stabs of pain across his chest with each unintentional gasping breath. He kept fighting for air, the fear and desperation renewed with each mouthful of oil he choked on until suddenly he was on his hands and knees surrounded by air again and the oil was draining away from the floor as he coughed and coughed and gasped for air that couldn’t get in past the oil lodged in his lungs. His body convulsed, desperately trying to rid itself of the black fluid—the pain of being able to see the room again, to feel the air, but with his lungs too full of liquid to save him, he felt like his chest would burst.

He tried to drag himself onto his hands and knees, but he didn’t have the strength. His body shook, wracked with coughing and gagging and gasping for life. He fell on his side and convulsed, trying again and again and again to puke up the oil but nothing would come up. He could feel himself fading out and tried desperately again to make it to his knees, somehow propping himself up on one elbow, blurry, burning eyes vaguely aware of the pool of black oil he was lying in. Then, across from him, he saw the flicker of something burning into existence. He realized it was a burn barrel, like he’d seen so many times during trials, and then he felt his heart stop as it made sense.

He could have sword he saw the flames licking at the top of the barrel grin.

The flames caught the oil still clinging to the walls and in less than a second the whole room was ablaze. The burning light flickered towards him, licking up oil in its path, and Philip tried desperately to stand but he only made it to his knees before he was engulfed in flames.

He screamed as he felt his skin burn, and the flames were inside him then, burning him from the inside out. He pitched and fell onto the floor, crashing into things, reeling, trying to do anything, anything to stop the burning. His could smell his organs burning. He screamed again and again, hands desperately grasping the pole the hooks hung from, and suddenly he remembered death and with some desperate hope at ending the pain he began ramming his head into the pole again and again and again, and blood and fire mixed until he heard something in the back of skull crack like glass, and immediately everything went black.

 

 

Philip woke up in the basement. He didn’t remember having slept. He started to move, but a wave of pain washed over him, stopping him cold.

He took a few shallow breaths to calm his heart and tried to see what was wrong. His skin burned when he held his hand up to the faint moonlight falling down the steps to see it. He couldn’t remember what had happened. He’d done something—he’d done something the Spirit had warned him against, broken a rule.

He could see burns cascading down his arms, his skin brittle like tree bark. He tried to sit up and he couldn’t. The pain caused him to fall backwards onto the cool concrete and lay there, breathing hard. He didn’t remember how he’d been burned. He thought with a sinking feeling that flashlights had been painful before, now they were bound to be excruciating. What had he done so wrong?

He remembered then—he’d let one of the souls go. It had begged him for mercy and he’d hesitated, believing it. The Spirit had been there, warning him, telling him it was lying to him, and he’d ignored it. He’d paused to consider on his own, and the human had thanked him and then suddenly hit him in the head with a rock and bolted, slipping out the exit before he could catch up. He tried to remember which human it had been—the one with glasses? The boy. And they’d all escaped him while he was preoccupied.  _Idiot._

Philip tried again to sit, and then gave up. It hurt too much to even try. Every inch of skin felt raw and even his chest ached with pain.  The smallest movement sent ripples of agony up and down his body. There was no way he was going to move like this. He would just have to wait until the burning stopped, and the Spirit saw fit to give him another chance. He was lucky it was forgiving; he remembered it had been very angry, and not even because he’d let them go and failed his job as Reaper, but because he had decided he knew better than it. Questioned one of his own Gods. He knew he’d failed it—given in to pride and betrayed its kindness towards him.  He couldn’t remember exactly what it had done to him after the trial, but he remembered oil, and fire, and not being able to breathe, and the scent of his skin burning. And still, here he was, alive. It was giving him another chance at his soul, again. Philip didn’t know why, but he was grateful.  He would do well, do better. Not let it down again.

He lay on the ground and stared at the hooks on the ceiling, cold and burning at the same time. His body ached, his head ached, and he couldn’t even reach over five feet to grab his sickle from where it lay without feeling like his skin would crack and turn to dust. Worse, there was a deep thudding pain in his chest he couldn’t place. Like something inside him was rotting. A deep heaviness. Maybe that was disappointment—maybe he was disappointed with himself. He should be. _Stupid, Wraith, stupid._

Philip closed his eyes and tried to control the pain. _I should have listened. They always disappoint and hurt you. Nothing good ever comes from trusting anyone._


	6. Nothing Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reset, Philip meets with the Entity. Claudette holds out hope. The Survivors face a hard trial.

“Wraith.” The words whispered softly through the room, cutting through the pounding ache in Philip’s head that had been making it too blindly painful to think. It had been right on the threshold of unbearable.

As the Spirit’s voice came, so did relief. Like cold water on a burn. Philip let out a ragged, shaky breath. _Thank you._ The comfort was overwhelming.

“Yes,” he answered, trying to stand. His skin was still raw and red from the burns, and he stumbled trying to make it to his feet and fell, cracking open a cut on his knee. The sensitive skin screamed in agony at the sensation, but Philip kept quiet, focusing all his will on rising again to meet the spirit properly. Its voice had stopped and the thudding in his head was coming back and he couldn’t face that yet.

Philip gripped the wall with a hand and pulled himself to his feet through the tearing sensation along his fingertips and palm, steadying himself against the boards of the basement wall as best he could. “I am here,” he answered again, praying for its voice to respond and drive out the waves of pain banging against his skull, if only for a few seconds.

“Good,” came the voice’s calm reply, and Philip closed his eyes in relief as the pain in his head ebbed again. “I have need of you.”

Usually he would have bowed, but Philip knew if he tried he would fall, so he gave a slow nod instead, hoping that was alright.

“You have recovered?” It asked, its voice again bringing relief.

Philip shook his head. “Not entirely. But I can walk.” He wondered if he really could, and for how long. But he was determined to try.

There was a hiss and a whisper in the air, and the cloud of dark smoke hovering at the edges of his sight formed solid above him and descended, plumes of it billowing around him until the fog was so deep he couldn’t see his arms at his side or the wall under his palm. The air was cool and calming, and as the dense cloud met his skin an indescribable ripple of relief passed through his body as the burning in his skin stopped, and the constant pain he’d been bearing for more hours than he knew faded until it was merely a sharp pang and a dull ache, not the almost unbearable fury of hot coals eating away at nerve endings.

Philip let out a breath which misted in the air, like the curse in his skin was leaving his body, and looked up at the darkness on the ceiling. He could take a knee now, and he did, head bowed low.

“Thank you.” He kept his eyes shut. “I do not deserve it.”

The air around him grew less dense and the cloud removed back to the ceiling above.  “I am confident you will not fail me again,” the Spirit replied, voice echoing softly along the walls, each syllable lessening the pain in Philip’s skull.

“No,” Philip said, shaking his head and still not looking up.

“I am sorry you were in need of this,” the voice said softly, somehow both reassuring and overwhelmingly fearful at the same time, “It gives me no pleasure to see you hurt. You did this to yourself, choosing to let the spirits walk free, to let those wrongs never be burned away. I told you it was a trick and you would not listen. You betrayed my trust, Philip.”

That hurt, but it was right, and Philip didn’t know what to say so he said nothing.

“I had no choice but to purify you to cleanse your soul,” continued the Spirit gently, “it was the only way to give you another chance.”

Something about the way it spoke reminded Philip of the first time it had spoken to him. Azarov, the skull still in his bloody hand. His heart thudding in his chest as pain and fury and helplessness and determination and regret fought for control in his pounding head, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Walking past rows of cars, imagining he saw blood leaking from all of them, wondering how many bodies were in trunks, how many he had overlooked and killed, what to do now?

Back then he’d been overwhelmed with fury and hatred and done what needed to be done, and as he walked away the anger had lingered but he had also become afraid. Afraid because he knew he had nowhere to go, and after what he’d just done, not much longer to live, and once he was dead, having taken innocent lives even unintentionally, he didn’t know what would happen to his soul. In desperation he prayed to his gods, never expecting a miracle, but they had come. Answered. The Spirit had offered him a second chance. Offered hope.

“I am grateful,” Philip replied, still on one knee. “And I am sorry. I was wrong.”

“Good,” replied the Spirit, “Come then. A trail awaits you.”

Philip stood, still a little unsteady, but the soreness was manageable now. Just pain. As he waited a few seconds in silence, the incredible stabbing pain in the back of his head began to return, and he wished it would speak again and end the blinding thudding, if only for a moment.

“I shall warn you,” it finally continued, relief washing over Philip as the pain again stopped for a few seconds, “They will remember your weakness and try to use it against you again, now that they have seen you falter. You will not fail me again, Wraith?”

Philip shook his head.

“Good,” said the dark cloud, starting to fade out, “because I have something special for you.”

 

* * *

 

 

_C’mon and breathe girl. You just breathe and keep quiet._

Kate Denson looked out over the side of the tree she had her back pressed up against, towards the generator. She hadn’t even heard a heartbeat, or the Shape’s heavy breathing. There was no grass moving, no invisible frame gliding past, and yet she was sure, very sure that whoever it was, was close. As she watched, waited, nothing happened. Six seconds, and still.

_I was wrong? No—I coulda sworn. I know that someone was there, coming this way. I’m sure of it._

She was usually right. She had almost developed a sixth-sense for Killers in her time in the trials.  Finally, her straining eyes caught movement. She couldn’t be sure in that flicker if it had been a movement in the grass caused by the Pig, the Wraith or the Nightmare. She could didn’t hear singing, but she was far enough away that it was possible she was just out of range for that horrible misuse of a sorry excuse for music the Nightmare brought with him. Kate kept her eyes on the generator, waiting for something to kick it.

But nothing did. She squinted, intently focused. The Killer had to have seen the lights flashing, heard the sound of a generator well underway. Had they heard someone else and moved on?

She didn’t hear it get behind her. There was no warning, no tell. No fair, practiced way to protect herself. It wasn’t until the crack of metal colliding with her shoulder sent waves of pain across her back, throwing her forward, that she even knew to run.

And she did.

 

Across the map, Claudette looked up from the generator she and David were working on.

“What’s wrong,” he mouthed, too cautious of being heard to actually speak out loud.

“Kate’s hurt,” she whispered, knowing the Killer was too far away to hear, going after Kate. She could sense her, far off to the left. They’d all developed abilities since coming here, and that was one of hers. She could feel it every time one of her friends was hurt or killed. Sense their exact presence, anywhere on the trial grounds.

David followed Claudette’s gaze off to the left and nodded. “I’ll go’n see to it,” he said, moving to a crouch and starting off in the direction she’d pointed. “You got this covered.”

“No, wait!” She reached out and grabbed his wrist, speaking much louder than she’d meant to, although it still wasn’t loud enough to even be called normal volume. Something bad was happening and she could sense it.

David paused and looked down at her, his expression changing when he saw the horrified look on her face. “What is it?”

Claudette said nothing as she watched the far away figure she knew was Kate, well beyond what she could actually see, as she felt Kate’s body thrown to the ground and dragged backwards through the tall weeds surrounding the hills around the barge. Something came down on Kate’s back, swinging again and again and again, beating the life out of her, hacking her apart like firewood.

It sent a shiver through Claudette, wincing with each swing, unable to look away.

David had his hands on her shoulders now. He was saying her name.

Claudette looked into his face, trying to register. “She’s dead,” she whispered after a second, still trying to come all the way back from the secondhand experience.

An awful feeling of dread had set over her and she didn’t know why. It wasn’t the first time a Killer had killed one of her friends during a trial. She’d been killed herself. And it had been happening to Feng a lot recently. Still, even with the Trapper’s recent spree, it wasn’t a common occurrence. She’d only been killed six times by a Killer in her time here, out of the thousands of trials she’d been in. Only six.  But she would never, ever forget those six. She couldn’t forget them. They haunted her in her sleep more than any amount of being sacrificed ever could have.

There was something different about dying that way, and they all knew it.  Being sacrificed was awful. The fear, the struggle, being impaled on the end of a pike the size of your abdomen and feeling it suck something out of you, like you were being slowly peeled away—there was no downplaying the horror of that. But this was different.  There was something just very, very slightly reassuring about knowing the way you would die in a trial. That you’d be stabbed, grabbed, and hooked.  It was a little light in the form of knowledge and routine, which gave them hope.  They knew about how long you could be on a hook before being killed, about how long it took someone to bleed out on the ground, the odds of struggling free.  It was a horrible hellscape on repeat, but at least there were rules and they knew them and sometimes they made it out.  It was a challenge they knew the boundaries of going in.  A familiar pattern you could study and learn to combat, even if just in small ways.

Being killed was different.  Claudette remembered the first time, several hundred trials in, when she’d been flung to the ground by the Pig. She remembered seeing the thing over her going for her throat and being so scared and confused because this wasn’t how things were supposed to be. And she’d caught the knife in her hand, trying to save herself. The pain had shot down her arm as the blade tore apart the tendons in her hand, and just as fast the blade turned and flicked across her throat and a white-hot pain flashed through her and she’d known her throat had been slit open. She remembered feeling the life spill down her chest as her throat tried to breathe through parts of its body that it no longer had, and the sharp pain told her she was dead for far too long before death really took her.

She still woke up clutching her throat, terrified, sure she was really dead this time.

But she was that this time, that wasn’t why the dread was spilling over her body. She knew why, but she wouldn’t look it in the eyes. She couldn’t. She wasn’t willing to.

_No, there’s no way. It’s got to be something else. I’m not. It’s… And Kate. God, Kate. Kate._

The name echoed around in her head. David shook her, and she looked up into his face.

“Come on, we’re about done with the gen. Let’s finish ‘er up before it comes,” came his voice, barely audible.

 _He’s worried about me,_ she thought vaguely, following him the half-step back to the gen.

Together they set back to work. David kept looking over his shoulder and past Claudette for any sign of danger. But for her, it took all she had just to focus on the wires and not let them spark under her fingertips. She was trying to think and not to think at the same time. _No, no, no, no, no. You’re imagining it. You’re just scared. Please, please, please be safe, Nea, be safe. Please be safe out there._

It only took a few seconds to finish the gen, and as it went off Claudette stared at it for a second, and David had to run back and grab her by the shoulder to get her to follow him to the next one.

“What is it,” he whispered, almost inaudible, as the two rushed together deeper into the marsh, towards a gen.

Claudette just shook her head. He wanted to ask again, but he didn’t risk speaking this time. He just gave her a look, asking.  She shook her head again and mouthed “Nothing” as they reached the next gen.

The two set back to work in silence, the eerie atmosphere that always set over a trial after a Mori seeping around them and settling into the blanks, the dust, the creaking of the old boats. David paused every so often to look at her. He hadn’t ever seen her rattled like this. She was usually about the most dependable in the group, and here she was, kneeling by a generator with her hands shaking.

A heartbeat kicked in as whatever was out in the swamp got closer, and Claudette let out a huge sigh of relief. She almost looked like she might cry. David let go of the gears he’d been adjusting and slipped towards a fallen tree near them. This time Claudette followed him right away, a little color coming back into her face.

Behind their hulking log, they couldn’t see past the plank walls to their generator. Just the shadow of something and red glow that came with the Killers.

It did not kick the gen.

Too suddenly, the heartbeat was gone. It couldn’t have possibly walked out of range, but there had been no sound of a bell.

Claudette and David traded looks. She saw him mouth “Pig?”

She started to nod, then didn’t. She just bit her lip.

“What?” he mouthed. “What is it?”

“Don’t think so,” she mouthed back, shaking her head, the old grim expression coming back.

“Wraith then?” he mouthed, making a little motion like he was using the bell clapper it carried.

Claudette shook her head.

They waited another second, and then slipped back to their generator. It only took another two seconds for Claudette’s head to snap up as she suddenly sensed Nea all the way across the marsh from them. David followed her look, knowing by now it meant probably someone was injured.

“Nea?” he mouthed. She nodded.

Her fingers stayed on the gen, but she was watching Nea run. She was fast, really fast. _Come on, you can do it, come on. If anyone can outrun him._

She didn’t. Nea took another hit in the back and fell.

Claudette’s hands stopped moving as she sensed Nea’s body dragged backwards, kicking and flailing, and something sharp was brought down on her back. Stabbed, and stabbed, and stabbed, and stabbed, Nea’s body jerking and fighting for escape at each cut until the life was carved out of her and she went still.

David was watching her face. “Dead?” he mouthed. She nodded.

It was very quiet then. The birds near them had settled, and the generator was still in the early stages of repair. The wind whispered through the weeds and made the planks holding up the building husks and old boats creak and sway.

It was cold. Just a little. Claudette thought with a pang that this was the kind of weather that she used to love. Just a little bit of child in the air, a promise that fall was coming and then Christmas, and things would be good.

But those were things that weren’t coming. They would never come again.

She tapped David on the shoulder and pointed to a generator in the distance. The Killer knew they’d been at this one already, he’d be back. David nodded and they slid off to their new target, moving like shadows past trees and the skeletons of old boats.

When they reached their new generator, Claudette kept looking at David as her fingers twisted around the wires, wondering if she should say something, warn him, or if that would be worse, if it would help, if it would make too much noise. But she couldn’t, because she didn’t want to make a guess, because she didn’t know and guessing might make it real. It couldn’t be real.

He met her eyes and mouthed “Who?”

She shrugged and kept going, the chill in the air settling around them both like a bowstring being drawn taught before a kill.

“Not Pig, not Wraith?” he mouthed again.

They did make the most sense, but she shook her head again. _No, I know it’s not the Pig, and it can’t be the Wraith. Not after last time_.

“Someone new?” she mouthed back, hoping in some horrible way that she was right. New could be learned, adjusted to.

In the distance, birds flew from the barge in a little black cloud. Good, that meant the Killer was there.

She tried to look at the generator and not think about Kate and Nea. They would be back at the fire by now, they would be okay.

 _No. They won’t._ They’d be like her. They’d be waking up forever from nightmares where they’d been dragged along the ground and chopped up, cold sweat, deep fear, feeling betrayed because even their own sleep was against them. They’d be a little bit more broken, and lost, and worn down, and she couldn’t help them. She didn’t know how.

 _How could anyone do that to them?_ Claudette wondered. She didn’t understand. She had never understood the Killers. _No pity, no hesitation. No chance to save them. No second thoughts._ She kept her eyes on the gen.

David looked up and met her gaze as they were finishing the gen, seconds from lighting it up, and his face immediately changed.

Claudette didn’t have time to register the emotion as horror or to hear David’s shout as he jumped up before she was being dragged backwards off the gen and lifted into the air.

_No._

She hadn’t heard him coming. No bell, no heartbeat, nothing. But she recognized the dark brown skin and scarred patches on the arm that slung her over a shoulder.

_No, but why?_

She forgot to struggle. The flashlight at David’s hip was up in his hand now, and in the Wraith’s face. He lunged forward at David, nearly catching him in the chest even through the blindness of the flashlight beam before he let go of her as he reflexively went to cover his eyes.

The warning sound of a heartbeat pounding furiously flooded the space around them, and Claudette hit the ground hard and pulled herself to her knees, frozen in an emotion she didn’t know the name of but that wasn’t fear.

“Go!” David shouted.

But she hesitated, eyes big and on the Wraith. Praying for something to change. He shook his head and blinked and turned to look at her, sitting there on the ground staring up at him. She tried to crawl backwards then, but only made it half a foot before hitting a wall. The Wraith never had expressions on his face, not really, but looking up into his glowing white eyes there was no doubt in her mind that he was going to kill her.

“No,” she whispered up at him, “You can’t. Don’t go back, please.”

He raised an arm. The sickle caught the moonlight and sparkled.

Claudette raised her arms to cover her head, and through them she saw David dive in between the two of them, catching the three weapon prongs deep in his right shoulder.

“Run!” He shouted again, grabbing her sweater with his left hand and shoving her away.

And this time she did. She ran. Claudette stumbled and dragged herself up and over a windowsill, looking over shoulder to see David take off in the other direction, clutching his shoulder, the Wraith right on his heels. She landed on the other side of the ledge and kept going, faster and faster and completely at random. Claudette fled through the weeds with more speed than she knew she had, dodging and weaving in a blind panic until finally sliding to a stop behind some boxes, breathing hard and shaking.

_This can’t be happening, I don’t understand. No. No, no. Why—why after last time? I know he was different, I know he let me go. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand, I don’t believe it. He’s never done it, so why now? It can’t be right. He._

But she had known. She’s known it was him the whole time.

She’d known it as soon as she’d seen Kate dragged backwards through the weeds.

There had only been one Mori she had never seen, and it had been the Wraith’s.

She just hadn’t been able to face it, because it would mean she’d been wrong. It would mean that the Wraith was no different than before, no different from every other monster here, and losing that hope she’d been given. Something so good, the possibilities, the future. The only real hope she’d had since this whole thing started. And losing it like this.

She looked for David, and sensed him, a little way off up and to the left, still running. As she watched, he took a hit from the side and went down.

_No._

Claudette stood up and started to run. She hadn’t been wrong, and she knew it. He’d been confused, and he’d hurt them, but he’d taken pity on her—he’d saved her. That had been real. It hadn’t been a lie. It was true. She wouldn’t give up, she couldn’t. She had to get there, she had to stop him. She’d done it before—she had to do it again.

In her desperation she tripped over some mangled tree roots and fell, cutting open her knee. She scrambled back up and tore through the marsh floor, scattering birds, desperately running for the form on the ground she was only yards away from now. She sensed David thrown onto the ground and dragged backwards and as she tore around the corner of the old barge she saw him for real, hands grabbing at the dirt and rocks, trying to struggle against the Wraith as it towered over him, dragging him back by an ankle as blood drained out cuts on his shoulder and side.

“Wait!” she screamed, still running, as fast as she could. It looked up at her, but it didn’t stop. It let go of David’s foot and moved to his side and raised its sickle.

“Please,” Claudette called out, making it the last five feet as the Wraith raised his hand and coming to a stop standing over David and between him and the Wraith, inches from the towering man with her palms up. “Please you don’t want to do this—don’t you remember me?” She was crying. She didn’t realize it until she heard it in her voice and she wondered how long it had been happening.

His sickle arced, no hesitation, and dug deep into her gut, knocking Claudette backwards and to the ground.

Her vision went fuzzy and black and red, and then she heard David yell as the sickle dug into his back and she could see again.

“No!” she screamed, trying to crawl towards him. “Please, please stop! Don’t!” another swing and the blade came down on David again, faster and more ferocious than last time “Please, please I’m begging you, don’t hurt him, he’s my friend, please,” she was crying in earnest now, as the blade came down again, sending some of David’s blood onto her face. She heard him scream.  “We’re friends, you let me go and I gave you a roll of gauze for your head, don’t you remember, please, please stop, can’t you see that you’re killing him?”

The sickle swung down again, and this time David didn’t scream.

The Wraith brought the blade up calmly and flicked the fresh blood off with a fingertip.

On the ground in front of him, Claudette’s shoulders shook as sobs wracked her body. She pulled herself over to David’s lifeless form and buried her head in his shirt.

She was only there in the comfort of still-warm that felt like him and life for a second before fingers wrapped around her ankle and dragged her off of him, throwing her to the ground. She tried to hold on to David, but couldn’t. She looked up at the Wraith over her shoulder as he raised his blade and felt the tears still running down her cheeks, silent now.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered up at him. “I thought you were good.”

He brought the sickle down deep into her back and she screamed and screamed and knew she would never forget what it felt like to be hacked apart.


	7. Dandelion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a place designed to consume hope, it can be easy to lose it.

 

Claudette pitched forward as she burned into existence by the campfire, suddenly on her feet again. The group in front of her (clearly mid conversation) stopped to turn and face her as she materialized, their faces varying levels of worried and grim.

David left off speaking with Dwight to rush the few steps between him and her and catch her as she stumbled. She fell into his jacket and buried her face there, still shaking.

“Shhh, ’s all right,” he whispered, holding onto her and gently patting her back.

 “David, I’m,” she choked out between the sobs she was trying to keep down, voice barely audible, “I’m so sorry.”

“Not yer fault,” he replied. “Did what ya could.”

She stayed in the coat for a few seconds and then let go of David and looked up at the rest of the group. He kept his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him and thought that he always seemed so strong to her, but right now he looked worried and worn down. On him, that heaviness seemed wrong. Even here. It made her miserable with guilt.

When she turned her attention back to the others, Dwight was waiting, watching her with concern and choked back questions. “Hey,” he said as she looked in his direction. “You gonna be okay?”

Claudette nodded. She followed his nervous look over to the others. Ace and Quentin were sitting by Kate, who was on the ground on her stomach, and using one of the logs by the campfire as an armrest. She gave Claudette a weak smile and a little one-handed wave at the wrist.

Meg and Laurie were between that group and the next, sharing a log—both leaning forward on their knees. Laurie was picking at a piece of wood in her hands, and Meg was looking up at Dwight and Claudette.

Past them, Nea was using the third log as a backrest, knees pulled up to her chest, and staring at the glowing coals in the fire. Jake and Feng were nearby, on opposite ends of the log. They looked over at Claudette as she looked at them, but Nea didn’t.

The fire crackled and everyone thought hard, not wanting to be the first to speak.

“So,” Meg said after about three seconds of the heavy silence hanging in the air, “Wraith.”

Dwight gave her a look.

“Moris?” Meg asked, ignoring him.

“Yeah. He did. I know he did, but…” Claudette said slowly, glancing at David, and then her other two trial mates. “I just…don’t understand it,” she finished, turning back to Meg.

Meg raised an eyebrow.

“I-I do know what I saw before—I’m not crazy,” Claudette hurried to add, “he let me go last time—and I thought—I think—he was sorry, but then this time, it was like he was a completely different person.” She lost a little of her energy and hesitated, the memory of being cut apart still fresh, and begging at every turn to be replayed in her head.

Dwight was watching her intently.

“Well,” Nea commented after a second, not looking up from the fire, “guess we were wrong about him.”

“…Do you think the whole thing was some kind of plan?” Quentin asked hesitantly.

Claudette shook her head. “I don’t—I just—"

“Then what?” asked Laurie, glancing over. “You think he was just in a weird mood? Does anything else even make sense?”

“—It sounded like what happened with Ace and you and me,” Jake cut in, “but worse. Similar though.”

Claudette nodded.

“Like he was glitching before,” Feng added. “That’s what it sounds like.”

“He’s not a robot,” Ace said, giving her a disbelieving look, “that’s a weirder idea. A lot weirder. Pretty sure he can’t glitch.”

“Does it matter?” Kate asked, her soft voice sounding a little more shaky than usual. They looked at her. She crossed her arms over the log and rested her chin on them. “I mean, we know he’s back to killin’ people. Maybe worse than before. Ain’t that kinda all that we need to be carin’ about?”

Dwight looked at Claudette, then Kate, and ran his fingers through his hair. “It would be good to understand as much as possible,” he said slowly, like he was working it out as he went, “but we need to go back to being careful around him. Or people will just keep, uh,” he gestured to the group at large and the recent trial participants, “this.”

“I think—” Claudette stopped and let the words trail off as the others turned to her. “I,” she said, giving it another attempt and suddenly unable. She had known what she wanted to say, but she second thoughts were creeping in as she saw the exhaustion and worry on her friends’ faces.

“What?” David asked.

“The Wraith,” Claudette tried again, “I know, I know what he just did—but I don’t. I don’t believe it. That it’s that simple. Not after what I saw before. You all were there,” she looked at Dwight, and Meg, and Jake, “that first time. I’m not sure we should just—”

“You still want to try.” Nia finally broke her gaze off the glowing embers and looked at Claudette. “You want to try to talk to him. Even after this.” She didn’t sound angry, or  condemning, or anything like that. She just sounded spent.

Claudette gave a hesitant nod.

“Are you crazy?” David asked, turning her to face him. “After waht jus’ happened in that trial?” He saw her expression and grabbed her shoulders. “No, ya know tha’s suicide. Y’ll end up dead, again’n again, ‘n I won’ have that. You hear?”

She felt worse, looking up at into David’s eyes. Hunted, running too long off of adrenaline and false hopes.

Dwight was watching her carefully, trying to calculate something quickly in his head. She caught him watching and bit her lip, suddenly afraid. She looked over at the others—at Nea, and Kate—at Feng, and Laurie, Quentin. Everyone who already had it more than hard enough.

_I can’t do this to them. I can’t. I won’t hurt them._

“You know that even if you figured out something eventually, it would probably take a long, long time, and it would suck. Every second of it,” Dwight said, almost like he was thinking aloud.

_He’s right. He’s right and I can’t make them do it. This is all wrong. I won’t do it._

“What’s there to learn?” Laurie asked, angry. “Don’t play into what they want!” The outburst surprised Claudette, and when Laurie saw the look on her face she softened her tone a little. “Listen, they’re all monsters. They’re strong, and unstoppable, and they cannot be reasoned with, or changed. They’re…they’re just _bad,_ ” her expression was pleading, like she was trying to talk Claudette out of jumping off a roof and this was her last chance.

Claudette looked over at Nea. She had gone back to staring into the fire, her gaze fixed on the coals, unblinking. Feng was watching her, looking concerned and completely unsure what to do about it.

The group went silent again. The whispering of the trees filled the space and a chill came into the air around them, even this close to the campfire.

“Maybe…” Quentin said after a seconds, “Maybe we could…”

“—No,” Claudette cut in, shaking her head. The cold breeze made her realize her face was still wet with tears, so she did her best to try it off with the sleeve of her sweater, feeling suddenly exposed and embarrassed and unsure of herself and all alone in the middle of them. “I’m sorry, you’re right. We’d just keep getting killed like this. Probably not learn anything anyway.” She swallowed, and tried to look more composed.

David looked relieved. Ace nodded. Laurie almost looked happy for a second.

“You sure?” Jake asked, speaking up for the first time. He was watching her thoughtfully.

She nodded again, afraid that if she spoke her voice might give her away.

“Okay. Everybody, just get some rest then,” Dwight said, moving over and putting a hand on Claudette’s shoulder. “It’s been another real bad day for us all. I’m going to get some plants.” He turned to Claudette. “Come with, or do you want rest?”

“I’ll come with you,” she answered, grateful for the excuse to get away from everyone and how she felt and do something useful.

Dwight nodded.

“You need a third?” Quentin asked, standing up.

“No,” Dwight said, waving him off. “We’re good.”

Quentin hesitated, looked at them both, and then sat down slowly. He looked contemplative.

“Okay,” Dwight said, turning back to Claudette, “lead the way.”

 

* * *

 

 

I know the forest really well by now. I know it better than Dwight, maybe better than anyone else here does. Well, except for Jake. Sometimes he reminds me of reading about the Rangers in _Lord of the Rings,_ the way he disappears into the forest and always seems to find his way—even here. I think he finds it more peaceful alone in the darkness _._ I remember kind of thinking that the first time I met him, and watched him fixing a generator opposite me in silence. We were in the woods, and even the birds that always screamed to give me away seemed calm and accepting of his presence. I never forget I’m stuck here, especially in trials, but I think maybe sometimes he does. He’ll go in deeper in the forest around the campfire than I will, and sometimes he’s gone for hours. I usually stay pretty close to the camp. We’ve never been attacked, just wandering around, but it’s still scary out there. Sometimes I’ve heard them—the same Killers we see in the trials. I’ve heard the Nurse shriek, or the Huntress sing. Heard a chainsaw kick on in the distance. I know they’re out there, and I think there are rules about how far we’re supposed to go. I can feel it in my bones every time I look out into the horizon. There are things out there waiting.

A couple of times, I’ve asked Jake to take me with him into the woods. He didn’t want to—I mean he didn’t say it, but he looked at me like I was trying to steal his lunch or something. Probably he just didn’t think I could keep up, which I guess is fair because I never can. Each time he takes me out with him into the woods, I’ll find some really exciting patch of new plants I didn’t expect to see out here in this kind of forest, and every single time I get distracted by it and lose him in the trees. He always comes back for me though—usually hours late, which really scared me the first time. Although, there was one time I waited for a little bit and then thought I should just try to find my way back on my own, and I did—which I was really proud of. When Jake finally got back to the camp himself several hours after I found my way there, he was so relieved to see me he just lay down in the grass for fifteen minutes.

Usually though, it’s several hours of waiting in the dark for Jake to show up, while everything makes spooky forest sounds that were sort of nice before I was all alone. Jake never, ever notices he’s losing me in the woods either. Every time I get him to agree to take me on a hike, I promise myself that this is the time I’m going to really pay attention and not lose him, and every time I do this I still end up alone in the middle of nowhere by a really cool bunch of moss, or sprig of pale flowers, or patch of fascinating brush. Oh—though there was this one time pretty recently where I managed to keep up with Jake for I think a couple of hours. That’s what it felt like it. I was really proud of myself, because he’d been walking fast non-stop through brambles and rocks and I was still right behind him. Anyway, we were way deeper in the woods than I’d ever been before, and we’d been walking in silence for a long time, when Jake glanced over his shoulder, saw me still right there behind him, and almost jumped out of his skin. Th big jerk thought he’d lost me hours ago. I couldn’t believe it. It almost made me think he’s been doing this on purpose. I know that’s silly though, and he wouldn’t do that, but I still like to think I gave him a pretty hard time for that one—called him the mean dad from Hansel and Gretel the whole way back.

Still, Jake does always come back for me after he ditches. Eventually. I’ve always managed to get a lot of plants by the time he does too—so many I keep having to ask him to help me haul them back to camp because it’s more than I can carry. And, after the first time when he whined like a baby the whole walk back, he hasn’t ever given me grief about it. Well, sometimes he’ll give me this big dramatic disbelieving stare when he appears out of nowhere to see me holding out what he says looks like “massive armloads of weeds and junk,” but he still helps me carry them. Of course, that’s probably because after that first trip I finally talked him into helping me carry plants back from, I used the weeds and junk to make hot cakes.  He eats hot cakes like he was a lumberjack.

He’s not the only one who goes into the woods with me though. A lot of the others have once or twice. Still, nobody lives in the woods like Jake does. I think sometimes he’d like it here if it wasn’t for the dying all the time. That must be kind of nice, in a way.

(…)

 

* * *

 

 

The wind was picking up as they disappeared further into the woods together, although she knew they wouldn’t go very far. Dwight never did.

The towering trees cast dancing shadows on the grass and pebbles beneath their feet as they went, and the sounds of the forest slowly filled the space between them. The leaves often sounded like whispers here. With it, the noise of the campfire was beginning to fade and be drowned out, though the glow still stood out like a beacon past the shadows. It was never still or completely quiet out here, but it was solitary. And she really appreciated Dwight had thrown her the lifeline. Claudette knew what she had to do, but it scared her. This had all been too hard on everyone, and the guilt made her chest feel heavy. It was her fault that Nea looked like that, that David seemed broken, that Kate was so tired. She’d gotten them all to hope, and then they’d been crushed by it. She’d caused this.  But at the same time, she still believed what she’d seen—she knew something was going on with the Wraith, and she couldn’t just give up on that. He had let her go, and he’d flinched when she’d touched his face, and taken the bandages from when she’d asked him to. He’d tried to be gentle when he picked her up and carried her to the gate. The Wraith had been sorry—she was so sure. Even…Even now. 

But still…the others were right too. They couldn’t just die again and again, trying to talk to the Wraith while believing he was just trying to trick them, hurt them. They might do it, for her, if she asked them to, but it wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be the same for them as it was for her. And she wasn’t going to hurt them like that again. So…she was going to have to do it by herself, and Claudette needed to have some time alone in the woods to think.

Well, alone-ish.

Dwight was close behind her, watching the woods. Almost as soon as they were completely out of sight of the fire he put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her. She complied, and turned to face him, a little confused.

“You’re still going to try.”

It wasn’t a question, it was an accusation, and she wasn’t ready for it, so it took her a second to say anything at all.

“I—what? You mean, with the Wraith?” Claudette was not great at lying. “I told you all, no, it’s not worth it.” She tried to boost her skills by not technically saying something untrue.

Dwight let out a sigh. “I get it. You saw him, we didn’t. You really believe you’ve got something there. I’m not gonna stop you.”

Her chest flooded with relief. She hadn’t had a counter-argument ready yet.

“But,” he said, holding up a _not-so-fast_ hand, “I’m not about to let you walk up to him and get hooked or Mori’d again, and again, and again in every single trial.”

“But I—”

“No,” he cut her off, holding the _not-so-fast_ palm out closer to her to stop her. “No buts. It’s not happening. You’re tough when it comes to helping people, but even you can’t handle that much disappointment that many times in a row. You’ll die.” He reconsidered. “Okay, well, no, you won’t. Not really, but you’ll I guess…burn out. And die in an emotional way. And I can’t let you do that, because we need you. So, you can do this, _but._ ”

She waited for the condition, it not yet occurring to her to wonder how he was planning to stop her if she didn’t agree.

“I’m going to do it too. We’ll rotate and switch off. Give each other breaks. Maybe every once in a while, we both just live through a trial, no diplomatic attempts. Ok?” He put his hands on his sides reproachfully as he stared her down.

She started crying.

His tough pose broke immediately, and he looked panicked.

“Uh.” Dwight thought desperately, completely blanking on what to do.

Claudette threw herself at him and wrapped her arms around him, pinning him in a hug. He went rigid for a couple seconds, not sure what had happened, and then smiled his half-inch down at her and got one of his pinned arms free at the elbow so he could pat her on the back.

“Thank you,” she whispered, holding tight. “You know you don’t have to do this, right? You’ll get hurt, a lot.”

“Yeah,” Dwight replied, “But I want to know too, and I’m not about to let you kill yourself trying to do everything alone. You know what I always say. ‘you have to succeed--’”

“’—so that I can succeed,’” she finished with him, laughing. Claudette let go of him and looked up, smiling, with tear stains still streaking her face.

“I mean, how bad can it be? I die all the time anyway,” Dwight added.

She laughed and wiped at her face with the arm of her sweater. “You know that saying of yours make you sound kind of selfish, right?” Claudette asked, the kind of near laughter in her voice that only came after you’d been crying hard and someone had thrown you a rope when you really needed it

“That’s the point,” Dwight said, like it was obvious. “You gotta hate your boss a little bit, to drive you to perform. No one would take orders from a nice boss.”

“What?” she asked, moving past him a couple steps towards a patch of dandelions she’d just spotted, the botanist in her taking over automatically. “That’s stupid. Yes they do. I’d work way harder for a nice boss. It’s called loyalty.”

“Really?” he asked, following. “Then why did I go to business school? I learned nothing.”

She laughed again, and he smiled at his friend’s back. _Mission accomplished._

“Alright,” he said, kneeling beside her. “So, what are we bringing back today? Oh—oh shoot, I know this one already—those are dandelions!”

“Yeah,” she answered, starting to pick some. “You’re right. The Latin is _Taraxacum_.”

“Taraxacom,” he said, getting it wrong despite his best efforts. The smile on his face switched out slowly for confusion. “Okay, but why are we getting these? I mean they’re like, little flower weeds, right? You’re saying we can eat this?”

She gave him a look. _I’m about to blow your mind, boy._ “Yeah,” she was still grinning, almost looking sneaky to Dwight, as if she had a secret. “You can boil it like spinach, or use it as a salad.”

“Huh,” he said thoughtfully.

“Or,” she added, watching his face carefully, “make coffee out of the roots and dandelion wine from the blossoms.”

“Whaaaat-no way! Holy shit?” he asked, “coffee?” He stared at her.

She nodded.

“Alcohol?” he asked.

She nodded again.

“Oh my god,” Dwight said, staring at the weed. “Oh, hell yeah.”

Claudette laughed. It was funny, less than half an hour ago had been one of the worst experiences of her life, and here she was. Happy about dandelions with a friend. She looked over at Dwight, who was greedily going after the flowers.

_The funniest things in life can save you, huh?_

* * *

  

(…)

Dwight, on the other hand, almost never goes into the woods. He’ll go if you ask him, or if anyone needs help with something—like he goes with me if I need a hand getting herbs for my medical kit—but we always stay near the edge of the forest. It’s really nice finding plants with him though. Dwight always stays close to me, unlike Mr. Bad Hansel and Gretel. He actually stays really close—like he’s afraid of getting lost out there in the woods alone or something, which is strange because he doesn’t seem as nervous about the sounds and shadows and spooky stuff as I get when I’m out there alone. But anyway, I like going out with him to get plants. I think the big reason for that is that Dwight will ask me about what I’m doing, and why. Just for fun. It’s kind of weird to me, but it’s also nice.

Before I got stuck here, I used to love chatting online about plants. All the people I knew were online friends I met on a botany forum where I would answer questions, and I really loved that. I miss it, too. A lot—not the never hanging out with people in person, the botany stuff. Although I guess both are kind of true. People make me nervous. I always think I’m not going to be good enough, or smart enough to impress them, and they won’t want to keep me around. Botany forums were where that wasn’t a problem, because it was something I was really good at.

I guess here it’s kind of the same, because they can’t get rid of me, and we’re all definitely better off together than alone.

Anyway, Dwight’s kind of the best. I think there’s something about having somebody show genuine interest in what you love and are good at that’s really precious to have in your life. I guess that’s sort of a stupid thing to say and it sounds silly now that I’m looking back and reading it, because it’s so obvious, but I haven’t really thought about it specifically before. I know I miss getting to teach people about how to use plants and take care of them. There is so much, right at anyone’s fingertips, just growing and changing and turning sunlight into new life. You can do so much with it! I’m really grateful that I get to teach some of that again.

Dwight’s a little slow at remembering the names for things but he keeps at it. And even though he basically never knows what I’m talking about, he still asks questions and looks all happy for me when I know what Burdock is and looks like and that you can eat it and that the Latin name is _Arctium lappa_. It’s goofy, but I like it. In a lot of ways, he’s kind of like a weird dad? Nea told Meg once that we should see if he’ll do the “hi hungry, my name is Dwight” thing if we bait him, but Meg said that’d make him far too powerful and we’d better not.

They’re all big dummies, but I love them.

Anyway, I know I keep just journaling my own stuff instead of advice. I needed to write that last part down, so that if anything happens to me, it stays in the world. I promise the useful advice part is coming up—flip the page over, I’m writing it on the back.  I guarantee what you learn there will be worth the time I made you waste if you read all of this, because we’re going to cover the Dandelion.

 

-Claudette Morel

P.S. If you can, try to find a family out here. There’s something about all the badness in everything here that brings out the best in people. You don’t have to be alone. You already aren’t. No one is. You just need to find them.


	8. White Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feng and Nea try to look out for each other.

“Hey.”

Nea looked up at Feng.

“Hey yourself,” she replied automatically, like always. Her voice sounded a little hoarse and she coughed and restarted halfway through the “hey”.

Not long after Claudette and Dwight had disappeared into the woods, Kate and David had been dragged right back into a trial, along with Quentin and Jake. Meg had gone running, and Laurie and Ace were both asleep on opposite ends of the campfire across the way from the two of them, and Nea had been drifting in and out, watching the fire.

Feng slid over from on top of the log she sat on to land beside Nea, back up against the log too.

“You doing ok?” Feng asked, glancing at her cautiously from under her bangs.

Nea tried to shake off her slowed reaction time and spacing out and play it cool.  “Yeah, I’ve been Mori’d before. No big deal.”

Feng was quiet for a few seconds. “I don’t know,” she said, looking up at the sky, “I kinda always feel like it sucks, even if it only happened an hour ago. A lot worse than getting hooked.”

The last part was halfway between a question and a statement, inviting Nea to respond, but only if she wanted to.

“Yeah, maybe,” Nea replied, looking at her for real this time. Feng’s deep brown eyes were so different from the bright neons, pinks and blues and purples Nea always chose for tagging. And still, the very first time she’d seen Feng she’d thought they were the prettiest color she’d ever laid eyes on, so dark at first she’d thought they were jet black, but known they weren’t. They were a different color, a new one, somewhere past what she’d thought brown was, one she somehow hadn’t known about before. “How about you?” Nea asked, looking back down at her hands. “It can’t be easy, with the Trapper lately.”

That was unlike her. This was unlike both of them. They never talked about how they were doing, or their feelings under the strain. It was never what she thought would help. She always tried to distract people when she was worried about them—get Claudette to make some food she could compliment her on, talk strategy with Quentin, take self-defense tips from David, trade skill lessons with Feng.  Talking about how you felt, asking someone how they felt, that meant making them remember, and the breaks by the campfire were short enough without brining that shit out of the trials with you.

 _Of course, maybe it’s just easier. Maybe I’m just a coward when it comes to people, who doesn’t know how to do things right when it comes to them. That’s possible too,_ Nea considered, flicking a piece of dirt off her torn jeans as she waited for Feng to answer.

“I’m okay,” Feng said in the exact same way Nea had a few seconds away. “I’m used to it.”

Nea looked at her, trying to judge how big the lie was. Feng felt her eyes on her and looked back.  “You sure,” Nea prodded, not sure why, “I mean…I wouldn’t be.”

Feng thought about that, but didn’t say anything. After a few seconds she said simply “It’s shitty.”

Nea waited for her to continue. She did.

“Being here, just all of it.” Feng looked over at her to see what she thought about that.

“Yeah,” Nea agreed, suddenly fighting the urge to laugh. “It’s pretty shit.”

“Yeah,” Feng agreed. They sat there in an awkward silence for a few seconds.

“Does it ever make you want to give up?” Nea asked suddenly. It was a question she’d been wanting to know the answer to for a long time now.

Feng turned her head towards Nea in surprise, and then thought for a few seconds. “…I don’t…really know. What would that even look like? Just standing in a trial, waiting to die? Wouldn’t that be worse—to never make it out?”

Nea nodded, feeling a little relieved. “I think so, yeah.  And you know, sometimes when we all make it out, or even just one of us does, it really pisses those things off. That’s something.”

“True,” Feng replied, following the thread, “I’ve made a lot of hatch escapes while giving someone the finger and it feels really god damn good.”

Nea laughed. Genuine, and deep down.  “Dude, me too. Once I got grabbed because I paused to T-bag.”

Feng grinned. “Gotta live dangerous. That one missed hatch was worth it for all the times you T-bagged and lived.”

They both laughed, and then at almost the same moment they realized that it was something, but it was so small—so insignificant, that petty little piece of vengeance.  In exchange for all the suffering, every single day, and the smiles faded and Nea choked down what had been going to be another bout of laughter. They sobered up painfully together, and by the time the smiles had worn off they were no longer meeting each other’s eyes.

“Do you think he’ll ever stop?” Feng asked after a few seconds, staring into the fire like Nea had been.

She knew Feng meant the Trapper. There was no need to ask.  “Maybe. He’s got to get bored,” Nea suggested, hoping it was true. “Or run out of favor with the Entity when it comes to not sticking us on hooks for it.”

She expected Feng to answer, but the shorter girl didn’t. Nea looked at her again, trying to see why. She couldn’t be sure, this close to the fire and the way it made the light flicker, but she thought Feng’s eyes were glistening a little too much—reflecting too much light back. She swallowed, hard, worry deep down in her stomach, afraid of something she didn’t even understand fully.

“Hey, do you remember how we met?” Nea asked, keeping her eyes on Feng.

Feng blinked and shook her head without looking. “Uh, I think so,” she replied, contradicting her head movement. “I’m pretty sure I was up on a hook.”

“You were,” Nea replied. “Three gens left, against the Doctor.”

Feng nodded, remembering.

Nea looked into Feng’s face, noticing her eyes again, remembering how she’d noticed them the first time too. She kept going, the memory getting stronger as she did.  “You ran and ran and ran, but he finally got you. I didn’t see any of it, but I could hear it. I was pretty close by, in a room on a gen myself. I finished that second one right before he caught you, and slipped off. I had no idea where you were after he picked you up until he hooked you and there you both were, right by the hallway I was hiding in, and I stayed back there crouched behind a cart and prayed he’d go left, and he did.”

“I remember,” Feng said, looking at her hands. She stole a glance at Nea. “I saw you. Everyone else was really far away.  I remember I was thinking ‘God I hope she saves me. I hope she saves me. Please don’t keep walking, please don’t.’”

“How many trials had you been in?” Nea asked. She’d never thought to ask that.

“It was my 27th,” Feng replied automatically. She hadn’t needed to remember, she’d known.

“27. Still pretty fresh,” Nea commented slowly, thinking that over.

“Yeah. Everything still _really_ sucked.” Feng leaned her head back on the log and looked up at the sky.

“You remember I crept out as he walked off and waited until we couldn’t hear him anymore?” Nea asked, watching her.

“Yeah, I remember you took a really long time waiting,” Feng replied.

 _Yeah, I was distracted looking at you. Trying to figure out how you had eyes a color I’d never seen and looked so determined and mad with a metal stake through your chest._ “I did,” Nea laughed, “Sorry.” 

Feng shrugged.

“Do you remember?” Nea continued, leaning forward. “Right after, I tried to patch you up, but instead you took off towards the gen in the room with us, clutching your shoulder. I kept trying to get you to come with me instead, go run off and heal and find a new gen, but you weren’t having it. Kept darting your eyes from me to the gen and giving me the most disapproving and insistent look.”

Feng smiled in spite of herself. “Sorry, that does sound like me. I bet I was pissed at you.”

“You _hella_ were, but it’s cool. Or, it was cool,” Nea said, correcting herself, “I’d never seen someone so set on finishing a gen. So I helped you and we heard him coming and we got it done and ran. And _shit_ you were fast. I thought I was fast, only person who never had trouble keeping up with me before was Meg, but damn if we didn’t book it across the whole stupid hospital, clear to the other side, outside in the snow, breathing hard as we heard him pass. And then, I remember peeking out to see if he was gone-gone, and getting ribbed in the side by you. Turned around to see you gesturing to the big stab wound in your shoulder like that stupid Judge Judy gif of her tapping her wrist watch and slamming her palm on the table, ‘move bitch!’ So insistent, so done with me and my response time, always two seconds behind you.”

Feng laughed, covering her face in dismay that didn’t cut very deep, only a little embarrassed Nea remembered her doing all this after saving her form a hook.  “Oh my god, I remember, and that was definitely how I felt. I was like, ‘What is she doing? We got to GO,’ I’m so sorry.” She was laughing a little more in earnest now.

“So, I mean, I did patch you up of course,” Nea continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted, “and once I did you took off for a gen on your own. Someone else had finished another, so it was the only one left. And I followed you, because like, I guess I wanted to see what would happen.”

“Oh, no, I remember this too,” Feng cut in, “I got to a gen in a hallway and started working and like a second later you tapped me on the shoulder and scared the shit out of me because I hadn’t heard or seen you coming, and I smacked you in the face.”

“Full-strength man, and it hurt _so much_ ,” finished Nea. “Looked at me like ‘the fuck are you doing here, bitch?’”

“It’s what I was thinking,” said Feng.

“We finished the gen together, most of the way. We were _so_ close and the Doc was coming and you just wouldn’t quit and I just knew he was going to grab you off the gen or slice you in the back, and he was only like ten feet off, so I stood up dragged you off the gen and got hit in the shoulder body-blocking for you, and led him off to try and give you a chance to finish that last gen. Which you did, of course, about the time he bashed me in the back with that nasty—the hell is it—a mace? Whatever it is.”

Feng shrugged. She didn’t know either. ‘The nasty stick’ was all that was coming up as an answer in her head, and like hell was she gonna say that out loud.

“I got hooked near the gen, and he went running off to try and get people at the doors, and there you were. Hiding not ten feet away. I remember looking down at you, all relieved, and meeting your eyes. And you gave me this apologetic little look and left me.”

Feng made a _yikes_ expression. “Okay, well, in my defense I was never—”

Nea held up a hand. “I remember thinking ‘Oh my god. She’s going to leave me to die. After I saved her ass and took a bullet for her. I just can’t believe it.’ I could see you walking all the way to the exit gates a handful of yards off and opening it. I remember looking to see where everyone else was, hoping someone else would come, and then I heard the Doc coming back to puppyguard me in case anyone was feeling altruistic, and suddenly I was having to fight the stupid spider-tree shit to keep it from impaling me and then there you were, in front of me, lifting me off the hook, taking my hand, and dragging me with you to the exit you’d opened so we’d be sure to make it out.”

Feng smiled at her, meeting her eyes again as she finished. “You looked so done when I slipped in there to go get you. And I totally until just now had not realized you might have thought I was just gonna leave you to die. That makes so much more sense. I was like ‘Wow, she looks pissed. Oh well, better book it.’ I remember that being a good match. I remember everyone making it out.” The smile faded a little, and her expression got farther away.

“The point being,” Nea said, putting her hand on Feng’s knee—trying to get through before she lost her again, “that that was the most insane match I’d ever seen.”

Feng looked up at her, and there was glisten in the firelight again, the too bright eyes, the hesitation, the expression trying to hold itself together.

Nea met her gaze and held it. “It was amazing, because you fought like I hadn’t seen before. Took risks, but played smart, played aggressive. Most of all, you were this weird new kind of person who’d pick working on a generator over patching up the bleeding hole in your shoulder, and bet you could outrun the guy behind you even with a gash in your back and preferring those odds to leaving your gen and letting him kick it back into needing repair, and yet, somehow you were also the kind of person who chose to come back for the chick you didn’t even know who’d pissed you off for the last fifteen minutes and risk dying with her over getting out safe by yourself for sure. And just because you wanted to do it that way.”

Feng looked down, turning a little red. She was used to being praised for her skills in all honesty—it used to happen a whole lot, but she hadn’t expected it here and now and it caught her by surprise. But then…really it was more than that. In truth, she’d stopped feeling like she deserved praise a long time ago. Before she even came into this nightmare. And here it was even worse.

“You’re incredible, Feng,” Nia said, leaning closer, trying to get the other girl to look back up. “I know it’s been shit, and the Trapper won’t give you a break because he knows how good you are and you piss him off, but we’ll figure something out. You’re as fast as me, and a lot smarter. And you aren’t alone. No matter how bad things get, we’ll figure out a way to counter, and we’ll get better too. And someday, we’re getting out of here, together, and you’re going to teach me that game of yours so you can kick my ass at that too.”

Feng put her hand on the one of Nea’s that still rested on her knee and held it, still not looking over at her. When she finally did, there were tracks down her cheeks that caught in the firelight, and her eyes were red.

Nea had never, ever seen her cry out of anything but anger before, and just knowing it had happened made her heart lurch as she feverishly tried to think of what to do.

“Do you really think that?” Feng asked, looking up into her eyes, her voice choked—almost a whisper. “That things will ever get better?”

 _Shit, do I?_  She looked inside and realized in a hollow and sickening way that she didn’t. She really, really didn’t. She hadn’t for a while now. _Shit._ “Of course,” she lied, squeezing Feng’s hand.

Feng sniffed and then put an arm around Nea’s shoulder and pulled her into a lightning quick hug, letting go after less than second and moving back to her half-foot of space between them and fixing her hair and drying her eyes, regaining control over her emotions.

 _I’m going to mean it,_ Nea thought, watching her and feeling the pressure on that had been against her shoulder a second ago fade.  _I swear I’ll mean it, I just need to learn how again. Just give me a little time, and I promise I’ll help you. I’m not going to let you do this alone, not even the believing part. There has to be something to believe in left out there. There’s fucking got to be._

Feng stopped in the middle of pinning back her hair for a second and flashed her a quick smile.

_There’s fucking got to be._


	9. Running on Empty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin, Kate, David, and Jake try to survive a trial, but Quentin's been running for a long time now, and no one can keep going forever.

_Oh, shit…_

Quentin Smith looked around himself. _Fucking Badham Preschool again. Wonderful._

He felt sick in the pit of his stomach and tried to level out his breathing.

The trial had started him inches from the front doors of this nightmare zone school he couldn’t even really remember.

_Come on, don’t think about it; don’t stop moving. You have to go._

A deep breath, a quick glance around, and Quentin slipped inside, heading for downstairs. He didn’t know why he so often ended up down there, so close to the worst place he’d ever been, but he always seemed to. No matter how hard he tried to avoid the building, he ended up here over and over again, among the pipes, by that disgusting old mattress on the floor.

Hollow, quiet footfalls on the stairs were the only sound as he descended the steps to the basement carefully. A generator, there in the corner—he’d been lucky. There wasn’t always one here.

A soft glow he wished he wasn’t aware of caught the corner of his eye as he reached the base of the steps, and Quentin hesitated. He then turned his back on it and took two firm steps towards the generator, then paused again.

_You know what’s there, you don’t have to go look. Don’t._

He didn’t. He knelt by the generator and carefully let his fingers begin tinkering in the patterns that were now almost familiar, almost memorized. It was so slow. It took _so fucking long_ to fix a generator. How could it take this long, every time, and still surprise him?

There was no sound aside from the clicks of the gen and the sort of ambient horror that always bounced around the walls down here.

Quentin’s eye twitched and he grimaced, the memories in the back of his head flickering images past him, clawing to be let out. Dead bodies hanging from the pipes, claws through his chest, the heat and steam, the sound of metal nails on metal, sharpening against each other, carving marks on the walls, the bodies.

 _I fucking hate this place._ He kept going. He always kept going.

Maybe that was all he was at this point. Quentin Smith, he just kept going.

“How much longer,” asked something in the back of his head, further in than even the memories he was trying to repress, “how much longer does he keep going?”

 _Forever,_ Quentin snapped back at the voice in his head. _Or…until it’s safe to stop._

“You can’t run forever,” the voice whispered back, “no one can.”

Quentin’s fingers twitched and he almost caused the gen to backfire. He grimaced again and tried to re-focus. He missed Zoneral. The generator was close to complete now, and Quentin did his best to ignore the thoughts. Focus on what came next.

_Okay, Quentin. Six seconds, and you’re done. Then you’ll have to run. Back up these stairs, or across the pipes and out the back? Can’t get caught here, too close to the basement. I could hide, but running’s better. Haven’t heard the killer yet, so that’s probably not good. At least there hasn’t been singing._

Two seconds left. Quentin stopped. The generator hummed under his fingers. He was going to have to run as soon as he set this off, so…

Flickering yellow light still came through the cracks in the wall behind him. From that tiny hole in the alcove that used to be covered by a drawing. Whispering to him, calling him to come and see. He was painfully aware of the anxiety building in his chest, bigger and louder until he was having trouble breathing. Fingers on metal on metal.

_Don’t do it, Quentin. Wake up. You don’t have time to spare. You’re one of four people stuck in this hellhole and you’ve already wasted enough time. It’s not going to help you, it’s not gonna change anything that happened, or anything that happens next. Don’t you do it, you’re better than this._

Quentin’s fingers went to the cross at his neck, still cold even in the heat of the basement.

_Fuck it._

He lit the generator and ran for the pipes, vaulting and taking off for the rear stairs in a mad scramble, not once looking back towards the lights and the little hidden room he could still see long after he was gone from the basement.

Outside, the light was bright and sunny and horrible, somehow worse than the fog and decay he remembered here. Quentin didn’t stop running until he was clear of the preschool and halfway across the yard, behind a boulder by a picnic table. His breath came in shallow and ragged as he attempted to quiet it. Looking around, there was still no sign of a killer. No heartbeat radius, no screams from his friends, no bell tolling, and god forbid, no singing.

 _Where are you,_ Quentin asked silently, peering out from behind his rock. _Where are you, and why hasn’t another generator gone off? I wasn’t exactly fast about it, so…_

Flickering light of a deeper orange color off to his left caught his attention and gave him a pretty good idea as to why. His heart sunk a little.

_At least it’s not the bastard. Probably._

The glowing thing was a hex totem of some kind—he could never tell what curse they carried, but the human skulls and bones and sticks tied together with string radiating their sickly energy were never a good sign.

Quentin slid over to it, low to the ground and quiet, and began doing his best to rip the thing to shreds as quietly as possible. He hated doing this, because the air around hex totems was thick, like trying to move your finger through water, and the air sunk into your hadns and stung and made you go numb and cold. It made you feel like dreams where your teeth fall out, or like you were sticking your hand into a rotting body on the floor and digging around. It had never hurt him or anything, but it always made him a little queasy. Still, this long and no one screaming, or up on a hook, and still only his one generator lit? It had to mean the Hag and her stupid curses were active, making it almost impossible to get generators finished as the wires coiled away from you of their own accord, and sparked, and dropped bolts.

_Well, somebody has to do it._

One last tug and the hex totem in his hands exploded all over him, showering him with tiny bone fragments and pieces of dark mist that landed like ash and melted like snow. Exploded wasn’t a figure of speech either—the sound it let out was like he’d dropped a grenade or set off a handful of cherry bombs.

This time, he did hear a heartbeat. Coming for him fast.

_And now to run again._

He did, booking it for several yards and ducking through hedges until eventually slowing to a crawl as he reached a house. The sound of a killer nearby still thudded in his ears, but he could tell he’d gained a little distance. As quietly as he could, Quentin slipped up through a window above him and into the house.

Quentin knew he’d fucked up before his feet hit the ground, but it was too late to stop his momentum. The second his sneakers came in contact with the little triangle carved onto the floor beneath the windowsill, the Hag burst from the ground and dug her claw into his chest.

Quentin flung himself back over the windowsill and out, running as hard and as fast as he could. As he did, two generators went off almost at once. He’d nearly made it to the hedgerow he’d been gunning for before the Hag’s claws dug into his back and he went down.

The pain was sharp and deep, and he was trying so hard to think, think of anything—what to do, where to crawl, how far he could make it before she grabbed him, but he couldn’t. He’d been spent the day he got here, and each trial had been more than the last, until he wasn’t even running on empty anymore he was barely there at all. But this time, not even words came to mind as he tried to think. He tried to do anything besides feel, but feeling was all he could do. Feel terror, feel pain, feel the agony coming from the muscle in his back she’d sliced through, feel the blood oozing out from his chest under him, pooling around him too fast, too much, making him feel sick. The way his body felt cold now, and what that meant, and how tired he was, how _fucking_ tired he was, how scared. And when he did finally put words together in his head to think it was because he heard her sucking his blood off her fingers and swallowing it, and then he was trying not to think about that—not to think about how many times part of him had been eaten by this thing, and trying not to think about how this wasn’t the first time claws had come out of nowhere and raked him across the chest and left him to bleed out, but once he thought about not thinking about that he was suddenly thinking about everything he’d been trying so hard not to think about since day one and it came at him with a rush, cascading, a tidal wave of too much fear and regret and despair to bear and he went numb for a second and didn’t feel anything at all, and then he felt everything all at once.

A strangled noise escaped his throat, somewhere between a cry and a whimper, and he stopped moving, eyes open, completely lost to what was happening around him, unable to stop seeing only things that weren’t there.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, no. No! Stop it! Stop, Quentin! Wake up!_

He felt himself lifted off the ground and panic flooded his system like a shot of adrenaline. Motion came back instantly, and he was kicking and screaming, fighting like a cornered animal with everything he had, swinging again and again as something grabbed his wrist, trying feverously to free himself, until he registered his name and snapped out of it mid-swing and realized he was about to punch David in the face again.

Everything came back into focus around him at once and Quentin caught his breath and stopped. He was kneeling, locked in a struggle with his right arm held fast by David and his left arm already drawn back to punch again. Blood dripped from David’s nose as he stared back at Quentin in a mixture of surprise, confusion, and caution.

“Oh shit,” Quentin whispered, the fight immediately going out of him, his drawn back fist falling to his side. He could hear the Hag’s heartbeat radius still close, coming closer fast. “—I’m sorry.”

“’T’s ok,” David whispered back, looking relieved as he stood and pulled Quentin up with him. “Now run,”

They did. Following David as fast as he was able, Quentin did his best to keep up with blood dripping from his back and chest down his legs, filling his shoes. Something loud happened behind them, and the Hag tore off after whatever it had been, missing them in her rush. Quentin didn’t look back, but he heard the sound of her grow fainter until he lost track of it. David didn’t stop running until they reached the side of the preschool again, and he ducked behind a fence and motioned Quentin to join him.

Careful to be quiet now, Quentin did, kneeling beside David so he could patch him up. As the older man tore part of a roll of bandages with his teeth and started to wrap it around the cuts, Quentin looked down at his hand, which was stained bright red from his own blood where he’d been trying to keep pressure on the wounds while running.

_I wish I could get numb to this._

He wondered how long it had been, since he first woke up at the campfire and stumbled on a group of other people, all as worn looking as he was, and just as surprised. A couple of months maybe? It was hard to tell the passage of time here. David hadn’t been there then, and not Laurie or Kate either—there had been less of them as a whole. It hadn’t ever really been a question before, but Quentin found himself wondering if they hadn’t been there as long as him, or if it had just taken them longer to be found, or to find someone else. David had showed up maybe a week after he did, when everything was still confusing and awful and fresh. He’d seen him for the first time on a hook, in the Basement. They’d both been on hooks in the Basement.

Quentin looked up at David and winced, watching the purple bruises forming on the right side of his face where he had punched him. David caught him looking and grinned.

“Not bad,” David whispered, barely audible, “you’re tougher than ya look. Pack ah bit of a punch.”

“Sorry,” Quentin whispered back, “I—I think I spaced out or something.”

David nodded. “Was like ya fell asleep n’ didn’t know. Yer probably deprived enough ta, even durin’ a trial.”

Quentin, who had been trying to see past the edge of the school for signs of the Hag, looked back up at David in surprise. “D-Do we have to here? Sleep?”

“Don’t know,” David whispered back, shrugging.

Thinking that over, Quentin let his gaze drift down to his shoes and the blood leaking out of them. _No way. We can’t need to. I haven’t slept in what has got to have been months now, right? There’s no way I just…how long has it been?_

He looked at David like that might give him some insight into the passage of time, and realized that he hadn’t just hit him—he’d left his nose well and truly broken. Quentin winced and felt an immense amount of guilt wash over him.

_Great. Good going, Quentin._

“Is nothin’,” David whispered, noticing as he finished tying the bandages, “I got killed ‘bout an hour ago. This don’t even hurt.”

A cry came from far off to the right, somewhere in the yards by the house. A girl’s voice, so it had to be Kate.

“Guess that means Jake made it out okay,” David observed, trying to draw a silver lining. He offered Quentin a hand, and the two stood up together

“That was Jake drawing fire?” asked Quentin quietly.

David nodded. “While I got ya up. Best not waste time.” He pointed to a generator a ways off to their left, by a parked car. Quentin returned the nod, and the two slipped off towards it together. They’d only gone about two feet before they heard an agonized yell as Kate went up on a hook.

Kate had been hooked closer than they expected, so both of them slid behind a car, listening, trying to pin down the Hag’s location. Quentin winced, thinking about how that felt—being hooked. Feeling guilty, knowing it probably should have been him—would have, if David and Jake hadn’t risked being caught themselves to get him back up.

“I’ll go,” Quentin mouthed, pointing towards Kate’s location from behind the safety of the car. David nodded, but before Quentin had time to get going they heard the sound of the Hag coming their way fast. She was still out of their line of sight, btu the sound of fear she carried with her was growing louder and louder by the second.

Both of them tensed, preparing to flee if they had to, and using the maybe three seconds they were going to have before she’d be in sight and they’d know if she had seen them or was just guessing to plan escape routes in their heads. The moment to choose didn’t come, though. Instead, there was a loud sound from back by the houses again as Kate got free.

Quentin shot David a hopeful look, which he returned with a relieved smile. In seconds the sound of the monster was gone as she raced back towards her escaped prey. Then, after a few seconds went by and no more sounds of injury or frantic running came their way, Quentin and David let out a unified sigh of relief and resumed their crawl towards the generator.

_Thank God. Good going, Jake._

They reached the generator and worked in silence, as fast as they could. With the generator hex gone, their odds of making it out of the trial alive were astronomically higher. They had only made it about halfway through repairing the generator when Jake slipped up to join them, grinning. Judging from that expression, he’d probably managed to sneak out right under the Hag’s nose when she went back for them, and Kae must be clear to. He made a “Y’all mind if I…?” gesture at the gen, and they moved out of the way to make room for him.

Quentin smiled back and mouthed a “thank you,” and Jake slid into place, stepping on a trap all three of them had missed in the dense weeds.

The sound of the teleportation trap deafened Quentin as dirt and grass exploded outwards, showering them with her aura of fear, and then there she was, her long fingers catching Jake in the cheek before whirling on Quentin, who stumbled back against a nearby car trying to flee, raking him across the leg. Diving past a pallet, Quentin bought himself a few seconds, and the Hag turned on Jake again. She was impossibly fast, but somehow David was faster, stepping in the way, and taking the hit on his forearm and giving Jake a chance to escape.

Running full-tilt, they scattered, gunning for ledges and windows, hedge rows, fences, cars, anything that could buy them seconds against her. Quentin found himself rushing back towards the preschool again, and he heard David go down with a crash a ways behind him on the street. A second later, to his left inside a house, there was the unmistakable _boom_ as Jake sprung a trap and he heard the shout as his second friend went down.

 _Shit, shit._ Quentin stopped and turned, running back towards where he could see David. _If I’m fast maybe I have time to—_

He didn’t. The Hag was coming back for David first, and she’d seen him. Quentin skidded to a stop and turned again for the preschool—the fucking preschool he always ended up cornered in somehow—going as fast as he could. The hole in the chain link fence and the many exits beyond were so close, and as he dodged and weaved he could hear her losing ground behind him.

Dashing blindly, Quentin missed the trap just inside the hole in the chain link fence. The Hag was instantly in front of him, her claws digging through his stomach and clean out his back. He felt his breath catch and heart lurch as he tried to stop, but instead his momentum carried him forward, digging the fingers in deeper until her palm caught on his ribcage. Blood trickled from his mouth as he tried to force oxygen back into his lungs, staring into the empty black eyes of the emaciated monster in front of him.

She tore her fingers back out of him and the force flung him to the ground on his back and she stood over him, letting his blood trickled from her claws into her mouth. Her tongue ran over the two rows of fangs and he felt a paralyzing fear ripple across his system, blocking out anything else, afraid even to try to flee.

 _No. Come on, please,_ Quentin begged, _You can’t stop._ Weakly, he rolled over onto his stomach and tried to crawl. _You can’t give up. Keep running._ He felt his body pitch as it tried to breathe and go into shock at the same time. He’d barely made it six inches before she lifted him up and dragged him the five feet to a nearby hook attached to the preschool and slung him up on it.

Fiery pain shot through his body, and he screamed, somehow finding the strength to grab the hook and struggle with it, to try and take some of the weight off his collar bone in a desperate attempt to feel less pain than what should already have been far too much pain not to kill him. He was vaguely aware of the Hag’s presence, digging her long fingernails into the dirt in front of him, laying a trap, but she was gone by the time he had enough control over the agony in his brain to look. Back on her way to get David and Jake.

 _Be careful, Kate,_ he prayed silently. _God, please don’t let her get caught._

“Quentin,” came the almost inaudible whisper, as if in response to his prayer.

He looked up and there she was—Kate Denson—crouched maybe six feet away by the corner of the house. It had been a question, the greeting. She knew the Hag would have left traps. Some of the panic in his chest subsided and Quentin pointed to the trap in front of him. Kate carefully skirted it, slid up to the base of the hook, and grabbed him, freeing him from the metal lodged in his chest with one swift motion.

“Meet Jake in the basement,” she whispered as she set him on the ground and shoved him gently towards the preschool, “go!”

Kate booked it towards the house and their other two trapped friends, and Quentin did as she said and stumbled as fast as he could into the preschool, watching carefully for traps. He made it down the stairs and hid in a corner by some metal steam valves and tried not to shiver, doing his best to staunch the flow of blood coming from the hole in his shoulder.

It was about forty seconds before he heard footsteps pounding upstairs and then the thud as someone jumped into the basement from the hole in the floor upstairs. Quentin unsteadily made his way over towards the sound as fast as he could and met Jake halfway.

“Hag?” Quentin whispered. Jake shook his head—clean break. Whatever Kate had done had worked. Quentin nodded and fished around in his pockets for the medical tape and fabric he knew he’d find. Jake took a knee and was silent as Quentin applied pressure and forced closed the angry red wound that cut from just past his left shoulder blade through the front of his ribcage.  It always amazed him how calm Jake was under this kind of pain and pressure. As soon as he finished, Jake took the supplies from him and did the same for Quentin, who bit down on his lip and did his best not to scream in response to the overwhelming pain.

They heard a shout, way off in the distance, and Jake stopped, suddenly looking very grim. She’d caught up to someone. Kate? After a second he kept going, steady but tense.

“We need to be careful,” Jake said, and there was something scary about how level his voice was as his steady hands finished up their work. “Kate got hooked early and I grabbed her when the Hag was off looking for you two. Then, just now, Kate got you free, then me. She managed to get David up before he was hooked, but that’s still three of us already, plus Kate just now.”

It took Quentin a second for the significance of the statement to sink in past the agony in his shoulder, but when it did he felt himself go numb and even the pain in his chest was forgotten for a moment.

He’d forgotten that Ruin wasn’t the worst hex the Hag had to use.

Only a handful of seconds had slipped by since Kate went up on the hook, but they heard the loud clatter of someone being freed coming from where Kate had been hooked, and as they heard it a ripple shot through the air past them. They couldn’t see the curse, but they felt it, heavy in the air as if they were suddenly breathing in smoke. They could feel it sinking in past their skin like tiny droplets of acid.

“Four,” Jake said quietly, securing Quentin’s bandage and standing up. “David have tried to grab Kate while the Hag was close and just missed.”

That was right, there was an area of effect for the curse. And now… Quentin swallowed, looking at Jake. “One more.”

Jake nodded, grim.

“…Shit,” Quentin whispered to himself. Two generators still left, and the next person to be hooked…

“Gotta be careful. We can’t afford to wait the curse off, because next time she gets someone we’re all fucked,” Jake whispered calmly, “but go slow.”

One hit and they were down, no matter how small the scratch. There were different rules and methods to the things that chased them down in the fog. The Hag manipulated curses and used them to destroy her prey and the one burned into them now was nasty. Even a light cut from her fingers would multiply exponentially on contact, tearing through a body part like tissue paper. He’d been hit while under this curse before, and the sensation was hard to forget—it felt like a bolt of lightning ripping through you. But as bad as this one was, it was nothing compared to her final curse. If one more person got saved from a hook when she wasn’t right there it would take effect. Quentin had only seen this happen a handful of times, but it was fucking awful.  He wasn’t sure how or why these things in the mist hunted them for the Lovecraftian abomination in the sky, but whatever sort of deal it had stuck with them, any time the Hag got this curse to take effect it let her eat them.  Any of them she could grab.

That had never happened to Quentin, but he had seen it happen and it terrified him.

Intent on the task ahead, Jake was already partway up the back stairs, motioning Quentin to follow. He did, and the two slipped out the back entrance and to a gen in the yard behind the school. Slow and steady. Following Jake’s lead, Quentin focused on making as little noise as possible, on not missing anything on the repair. They were only there for a couple of seconds before Jake indicated something with his head. Looking up, Quentin could see the Hag in the distance, slowly making her way towards them.

The boys split of, abandoning the generator and slipping back towards the school. Hugging the corners of the building for cover, they crept their way towards the partially repaired generator they’d been working on earlier when the Hag had almost managed to down them all. The sounds of a generator repair well underway alerted them to David’s presence well before either of them saw him.

He greeted them with a nod when they moved to join him, sliding into the same spots they’d been in earlier, though more carefully this time.  His face was serious. He must also have realized that they’d run out of room for error on this trial.

As he began to work opposite David and Jake’s set expressions, Quentin thought how different the two of them were despite his initial impressions of them a couple months back. They were both strong and tough, sure, and that was the first thing people usually noticed, but they were almost polar opposites in how they were tough. David was strong in a loud way—like he was always already halfway to starting a bar fight he was sure to win, while Jake was quiet and set, patient—tough in a way that made you think he had what it took to endure.

There was never any downtime in trials, no off moments to talk or breathe, to do anything people would have thought of as relating to each other, and still at the same time, every trial Quentin was in left him knowing the people around him a little better.

_I guess there’s time to think._

It was funny—they thought of the trials as things that happened to them, but that wasn’t really right, was it. They spent so much time in these awful little arenas being hunted, that was the majority of their days. Trials didn’t happen, breaks by the campfire happened. Their whole lives were these awful nightmares on repeat.

The generator was rattling now, close to starting up, and while the sickening energy from before still hung in the air and on his skin, Quentin could feel the curse fading from inside him. It lasted a long time, but they’d made it over half of the way there.

_We can do this. Just a little more._

They were close, very close to finishing the generator, when Jake looked up and mouthed “Kate?” to David. David nodded towards the house nearby, which Quentin was willing to bet had a generator in the basement or second story. Jake nodded and slid off in that direction.

_Smart. Get a head start on the last one._

Jake disappeared into the house, and a familiar dread set in Quentin’s chest as the generator neared completion. _About six seconds and this thing is a beacon and you’re going to have to run. Run where?_

Six seconds became two as suddenly their ears picked up th pounding intensity of the Hag’s terror radius moving towards them fast. Looking up, Quentin saw her as she rounded the preschool towards them.

_Shit, she must have seen us._

He and David were both up and running as one, gunning for the left side of the house and the long way around. Behind them, the sound of their assailant became overwhelming until she paused and they heard her slashing at the generator, trying to destroy their progress. Good—that bought them a little time to run.

They were so close to each other that neither of them knew who stepped on the trap, but in an instant the lead was lost and there she was in front of them, and they were horribly aware that her curse was still burned into their skin.

Maybe it was that panic that gave them the extra burst of speed, maybe luck, but somehow both boys managed to fling themselves wide as she swung, and her blood-stained claws missed. Adrenaline and panic taking over, they tore off in opposite directions with the half-second lead they had.

Quentin had only gone about fifteen feet before he realized the Hag wasn’t chasing him—she was going after David. He turned to look and froze, caught between the instinct to flee and a desire to help his friend, and then the second to decide was over and David was past the house and disappearing, the Hag close on his heels. Quentin took a step after them and hesitated again, looking from the generator they had almost been able to repair a few yards behind him to where David had vanished seconds ago as he vaulted some shrubs.

_Shit._

Three generators down, two to go. Kate and Jake had to be close to done on theirs and Jake would know the one he’d been on with Quentin and David was mostly fixed.

_Fuck, fuck—think!_

Quentin ran, not for the generator or for David, but for a yellowed chest nearby behind a hunk of concrete, leaping over it and tearing it open.

_Come on, come on, come on._

There—perfect. Inside was a small medical kit. He always had a knack for finding them here.

_Think it through. There has to be a way out of this._

He wasn’t fast enough to catch up to David and the Hag before she got him, but she was going to be under pressure. Any minute Kate or Jake would light a gen, and there’d only be just one left, and she didn’t want just David—she wanted them all. Two exit gates, one hatch. There had to be a way out, even with the curse.

_If I can stress her out enough running around after us, get her to guard the wrong exit maybe. Buy time to get David._

One exit gate right by this gen, the other off by the preschool. It was a straight shoot down the street from one exit to the other, but a long one. The Hag would have to know to come back here though, to the generator they’d almost fixed—she’d seen them on it twice. That was, unless maybe—

Up as fast as he’d stopped for the chest, Quentin abandoned the empty container and his old gen, and ran for the one in the yard by the preschool. His feet dug into the grass as he sprinted, leaving an easy trail to follow while he listened for David’s yell and prayed he wouldn’t hear it. Leaping over a trap and sliding to a stop on his knees, Quentin reached the generator and started on it, hands moving quick and precise—just enough so she’d be able to tell someone had been there, repairing it. Then he took off. He’d seen another unlit generator by the preschool entrance.

Cutting through the school for visibility, Quentin saw another of the Hag’s trap and skirted past it. As he made the exit, he heard an agonized shout as David went down.

_Shit, shit, shit! Faster, come on!_

Quentin ran. Unlit gen in front of the preschool. This time he saw the trap coming and activated it on purpose.

_Come and get me you bitch. Drop him if it’s worth it. You’re running out of time, two gens left._

She didn’t come after him, and the illusion of her vanished after a second. Quentin didn’t wait to see if she’d teleport or not before he began working on the generator—he just went, just kept going.

The heaviness in the air lifted and Quentin felt the old curse melt away, but he knew it didn’t matter. Three seconds on the generator, and David was up on a hook. Not far behind the preschool. The Hag had gotten what she wanted, her final trap set, and she’d be coming for him now. She couldn’t teleport to his side with her trap gone, but activating it had meant she knew where he was.

Quentin was up and running for the preschool when the second to last generator finally went off in the house. _Thank God._

He dashed through the open doorway, hearing the sound of the Hag’s terror radius growing as she came for him. He threw himself through the hole in the concrete floor and fell to the ground.

Back again in the basement, back again by the alcove, and the drawings, and the room beyond with its pictures and bed and,

_Stop—you have to wake up! Go, move!_

He pulled himself to his feet and ran for the stairs, making it up them and out the back of the preschool just as he heard the Hag pass him overhead, closing in on the generator he’d been on seconds ago.

Quentin ran as fast as he could straight for David, tearing past the fence around the preschool and around bushes and trees until stopping short about ten feet from his friend as he came into view and Quentin saw the traps he’d know would be there. They were everywhere—so many of them—completely surrounding David and making it virtually impossible to reach him without tripping one.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck!_

His fingers closed tight around the handle of his med kit as he tried to think a way out of this. There was a scream then, near the house again—Kate. Injured, not down. _Thank God the curse wore off—keep running Kate, just long enough for Jake to get the last one._ _We can still make it._ Quentin looked over his shoulder in her direction even though he knew she’d be too far away for him to see her.

“Don’t,” David said, just loud enough to be heard. “Gen left and doors to open. You know what’ll happen.”

At the sound of his voice, Quentin spun back to face him, and their eyes met. David’s were gaunt and hollow, so different from the man who’d been with him just two minutes ago. He’d been okay—he’d seemed okay, at least, and now he looked like. He. He looked dead. Like he’d already given up. Quentin could hear the steady drip as blood oozed from the hole so close to his friend’s heart, the jagged breathing made agonizing as the lung’s contracting and expanding tore it against the hook that was slowly killing him.

“I’m not just going to leave you,” Quentin said, desperate. “If they don’t get the door, then I can find the totem—there’s still time.”

A sound came from his right then, a way back—Jake must have sprung a trap to draw fire. The shout about four seconds later as he got hit confirmed it had worked. Smart, Jake was good at running, and Kate was faster than him on gens.

Back turned, he didn’t realize David was struggling to free himself from the hook until he heard the snap of the Entity arriving. Quentin spun around in time to see its claws surround David, trying to fight past his arms to rip open his chest.

“What are you doing?” Quentin hissed as loud as he dared, a cold fear flooding his system as he realized exactly what David was doing.

“We all kno’ how ‘t works,” David said quietly, the muscles in his arm taught in a losing battle, struggling to keep the Entity’s talons at bay, “Go ‘n I’ll buy the lot of ya some time; try ‘n get me free and I’ll stop strugglin’ the second yeh come close.”

“Are you crazy?” Quentin asked, taking a step towards him and stopping short when he saw the look on David’s face. “David, I can’t just leave you to die,” he whispered, mind blanking as he tried to think of what to do, what to say.

“It’s me, or it’s everyone,” David replied, voice quiet and set. The truth, no room for bargaining or discussion. “So it’s me.”

“So what, we sacrifice you?” Quentin asked, taking another step, “Just give up? That isn’t right!”

David’s expression was a warning now. There wasn’t going to be another step taken without him letting go of the claw aimed at his heart. “Don’t.” His voice was cold, exhausted, almost angry.

_It isn’t fair. It’s always like this and it isn’t fair. Not again. I won’t do it!_

“David, please,” Quentin begged, “I’ll find the totem—we can still—”

And then, behind him and to his left, the last generator went off. For a moment, Quentin could see the exits light up in his peripherals, offering the promise of escape and safety and hope. But he was looking at David, and he knew it was lie, and there wasn’t going to be a way out of this for them all. He knew the Hag would be coming, and Jake and Kate were both injured already, and that saving David was impossible, and that none of them were ever going to get out this hell for real, they’d keep on living through this nightmare that reset and repeated on and on relentlessly, so it didn’t really matter if he did, or if he died, or if he left everyone else to die, because it would all just begin again like nothing had mattered.

“Time’s up,” whispered something in his head.

_Yeah. It’s been up for a long time._

Quentin launched himself towards David, taking less than a second to close the distance, the Hag’s traps exploding around him as he set them off.

Time didn’t slow for him, and David didn’t hesitate. As the illusionary Hags appeared all around him he saw David let go, saw the talon swing back to tear open his chest, and he knew there was no time and no way he could make it, but with everything he had left Quentin tried.

_Please._

The talon missed as Quentin’s momentum tore David free of the hook and threw both of them onto the ground.

Quentin was on his back looking up with the breath knocked out of him when the ripple of energy shot across the sky as the curse he’d activated exploded from the hook above them, cascading across the trees and the buildings and burying itself in their skin. Death on a timer.

He knew what he’d done, and the pain and exhaustion and regret and hurt on David’s face just inches away made him painfully aware. She could kill them all now.

“You can’t run forever, Quentin,” came the voice in his head again, “You know you’ll never make it. You’ll never get out for real. It’s only a matter of time.”

_Just fucking watch me._

Struggling to his feet, Quentin grabbed David and pulled him up with him, shouting above the overwhelming panic auras from the six traps he’d sprung.

“Exit’s past the house!”

David looked in the direction he was pointing, and Quentin caught a second of hesitation and a tiny flicker in one of the traps just behind him. The Hag was coming.

_Shit—_

In one fluid motion, Quentin pushed his med kit into David’s hands and shoved the bigger man towards the house, using the motion as leverage to push himself between David and the trap, taking the hit for him as the Hag materialized and swung.

Long claws cut deep into his right shoulder, and Quentin stumbled a few steps before breaking into a run while behind him the Hag paused to lick blood from her fingers.

 _Run. Don’t stop running._ The far exit—by the preschool. He prayed it would be open.

It was hard to run, bleeding badly, his right shoulder stinging from where he’d been hit, but Quentin did his best to make it to the exit. He could hear the Hag gaining ground behind him, fast.

Cutting through the school, Quentin stumbled over a little table, just barely catching himself on a bookshelf. He flung down a pallet and tore through the hallways, bursting from the far side of the preschool with his lungs burning for air from the strain and his eyes blurry from blood loss as he looked desperately for the way out.

There it was, just 20 feet away. Jake was on it, and the flashing lights above the door let him know it was so close to open.

Hope.

The heartbeat closed in and Quentin vaulted over the fence just a second too slow and felt a burning pain shoot through him as the Hag sliced his back leg open, and he pitched forward, slamming into the ground outside.

He’d been so close.

The Hag was past him in a second then, and on Jake. He made it far enough to be out of Quentin’s line of sight before he went down, but Quentin could hear the scream.

He started to crawl towards the closed door then, no longer sure what was driving him.

 _Shit, shit, shit._ He tried not to think about what was about to happen to Jake, to him. _If I can just get close to the door then she might come back for me first and then Jake—maybe someone will have time to—_

He was trying, but forming coherent thoughts was getting harder and harder, and then the Hag was on top of him, sharp fingers biting into his arms as she dragged him over, flipping him on his back.  Quentin looked up into her eyes and all he could see was how hungry she was, how rabid, the flecks on blood on her teeth, her thin white bones showing through the stretched skin and scars, her labored breathing as she grinned. He could feel his body getting cold as the blood leaked out of him. Running out of time fast, but not fast enough to die in time. He tried to swallow and couldn’t. Her hollow eyes looked back at him and she opened her mouth.

Then there was a flash and he suddenly Quentin had to squint to see as a bright light caught the Hag in the face, and she let out a loud scream that was almost a hiss, recoiling. Before he had time to process what had happened, Kate was grabbing his arm and dragging him back towards the exit gate, flashlight still leveled.

On his left, David half-carried Jake past them to the exit and Jake flung up the switch for the lock.

“Hurry!” Shouted Jake, using David to keep himself upright.

Kate did, throwing Quentin over her shoulder like he weighed nothing and booking it for the door.

The gates swung open and David dragged Jake inside, hesitating a few steps from safety to wait for the other two.

“Go, go, go!” Jake called, looking past them to the Hag as she made a mad dash into the exit after, screaming in fury.

Kate reached Jake and David and all four ran to the exit just as the hag’s claw sliced deep into Kate’s back, knocking her and Quentin past the burrier and back into the safety of the woods.

For one moment they were stumbling over free roots in a misty nothingness, and then the wounds on Quentin’s back and leg and chest closed up, and he could breathe again, and all four of them vanished for a second and then came burning back into existence, and Kate and David collided and sent the whole group tumbling out of the nothingness in a heap by the campfire.

There was nothing but the sound of people breathing hard for a second while they all came down from the panic high and registered what had just happened, and then Jake started to laugh. Quentin had never heard him laugh before.

“Holy shit,” Jake managed to choke out, “Kate.”

Kate untangled herself from Quentin and offered him a hand, beaming. He took it and sat up beside her. Beside them, David had propped himself up on one arm, but Jake was still lying on the grass.

“That was…” David didn’t know how to finish. He just looked from Kate to Quentin.

Jake was still laughing. “I thought we were all fucking dead,” he said, putting a hand to his chest, “–Ow. Shit, the wounds are gone but I think that shot of adrenaline is still going.”

David looked at the medkit Quentin had given him and shrugged.

“When did you even get a flashlight?” Jake asked Kate.

“Box in the house,” Kate replied, tucking her knees up to her chest. “I felt bad. I was the one as got hooked first, so—”

“You mean after I accidentally tripped over you and led the Hag right to your hiding place?” asked Jake, still doing his best to choke back the urge to laugh.

“Well, you didn’t know,” Kate defended herself, “And I’m still kinda new at this whole thing, set off a lot of traps tryin’ to get to y’all. I know it’s rough on you.”

“Kate,” Jake said, pausing to take a breath, winded from laughing. “You did good.”

She grinned.

“Thank you,” Quentin added. “You have no idea how much I didn’t want to get eaten.”

“Oh my god,” Jake continued, covering his face with both hands, “Jesus.”

“It looks like somebody had a pretty good trial. You freakin’ weirdos,” said Nea from across the campfire.

Jake gave her a thumbs-up, eyes shut, still refusing to move from his position on the ground.

Nea just shook her head and gave Feng a “can you believe this?” look.

Feeling eyes on him, Quentin turned to look and saw David watching him, his expression hard to read.

_Shit. Yeah—he’s probably mad._

Quentin tensed up and David noticed. Slowly, he stood up and walked over, stopping above Quentin and looking down at him.

“David, I’m…” he stopped because he wasn’t sorry, even though that was probably what he was supposed to say. _You can be pissed and that’s fine, but I’m right. I know I fucked up, but I’d do it again. And I will, and you can’t stop me._ He swallowed and looked up into David’s face. “You better not do that again. It makes it really stressful trying to help you,” Quentin finished.

The bigger man looked down at him for a second, and then very slowly he smiled, put his hand on Quentin’s head, and ruffled his hair.

The response was so unexpected that Quentin just sat there in surprise, taking it.

“Only if ya stop punchin’ me in the face,” David replied, letting go and walking off towards the bonfire.

Quentin turned to watch him, trying to figure out what had just happened.

Nea and Feng had walked over and Nea was leaning over Jake, asking questions and poking him in the shoulder to see how long it would take him to get up, in spite of which it still looked like he had no intention of moving.

Kate was describing some of the events to Feng, overjoyed with the rare complete success, and a few feet away Laurie had woken up from her nap and was leaning on her knees, listening to them. Past her, Ace was still sleeping--good rest, the kind nobody should have been able to get here, but somehow he always did.

David stopped at the fire and warmed his hands, and in the distance, Quentin saw Claudette and Dwight appearing from the woods with their arms full of some yellow plant.

For a few seconds, Quentin just watched them, doing the same thing he always did—thinking about the here and now and the next step, and shutting out everything else. Tense, armed, readied—always planning, always thinking.

And then, slowly, Quentin looked down at his hands, and for the first time since he’d arrived, he allowed himself to think—to really think—about everything he’d been too afraid to face up to. He let himself think about the people back home, about his friends, his dad, Nancy. He thought about how awful all of this was, and how much he fucking hated feeling powerless and trapped, again, and again. Quentin let himself think about death, and pain, and how much he was afraid he was going to be trapped here forever and no one would even know what had happened to him. He wondered if they’d given him a funeral, or if they were still looking, if Nancy went to the library in search of answers and hope like he had, if his dad thought he knew why he was gone or if he sometimes drove the car around at night looking for him. As he turned around and watched the others, Quentin thought about the people here too. He thought about their lives before this, about the family and friends they had to have lost, about their chances of ever making it out, and the people waiting out there somewhere for them, maybe looking, maybe praying they’d come home. He wondered how long this had been going on, and if anyone had ever made it out. If anyone ever would. He thought about how little time they had before they’d be back in a trial, and the way David had looked so hopeless on that hook, and how it had sounded when Jake had laughed, and the way it had made Kate smile.

 _You’re wrong about me,_ Quentin thought, fingers tracing the grain of his necklace, homesick and broken and more awake than he’d been in months, _I won’t stop running._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been on a road trip, but I'm back now with a fairly long chapter from Quentin's pov. I'm going to do my best to pass the baton between characters, but don't worry, Philip and other threads will be returned to shortly. Thank you all so much for the support, it really means a lot, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!


	10. Core Essentials

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Entity provides Philip with some elucidation.

“You seem distracted, Wraith.”

The voice whispered around him, filling the room. He felt the dark presence above him as a heaviness in the air. It had been there the whole time, looking over his shoulder, watching, waiting.

Of course, it was always there. Always around and observing things in a way—prepared, present. But this had been different. He knew this had been some kind of a test.

The ground around him had melted back into the solid comfort of the auto repair garage he always went home to long ago, but he hadn’t moved. He’d been standing there staring at nothing for a long time now, staring at the boards beneath his feet and the grass and the dirt, and thinking, or maybe not thinking, maybe very much not.

The Spirit had been waiting, watching him like he was studying the plank at his feet. When it finally spoke, he didn’t jump, just slowly turned his head towards the sound—he’d been expecting it for awhile.

“Why did she say that?” Philip asked, looking up at the black smoke above him.

There was a second of silence, then the Spirit said “Wraith. You have done well today.”

Philip felt the presence lower, and although he could not see the god itself, the Entity in the sky came closer, and the black smoke thickened.

“These souls you hunt,” it continued, voice smooth and calming, absolutely sure, “they in life obtained all they desired by using others—manipulating others. They found people like you, Philip—naive, good-hearted, a little too trusting, not quite ambitious or proactive enough to cause problems—people who just wanted to live. To have a roof, and food, and sometimes maybe a good drink, some music, something to make all that bleeding and sweating and enduring worthwhile.”

The words hit deep. They were almost his own--he knew he'd thought them before. The Entity was right and the words were hard but true, so Philip looked away.

“They took advantage of simple people, people who didn’t have the ruthlessness or the advantages in life they had to stand on, and built their mansions out of their bodies, their bones, their lost time,” continued the Spirit, and then for just a moment it almost sounded sympathetic. Emotion was rare from the god, and this wasn't emotion, but it was close. Like it was thinking sympathetic. “They were…unjust. And cruel. And in life, no one had the power to stop them. But here?”

If the god had been a human, it would have been gesturing out at the landscape around Philip and he could hear that in its voice, so he looked.

“Here there have no power. No advantage, no assistance, nothing to protect them,” finished the Spirit. “And so, they return to the one thing they had in life to use against those they found weaker, or more stupid, poorer, not ambitious enough.”

“Deceit?” Asked Philip absently. It was more of a statement really. He knew the answer.

“Manipulation,” corrected the Entity.

Philip thought about that for a second, eyes drawn back to the wood at his feet and the dirt, still seeing the memories of the recent trial play out instead. He felt his blade slicing through tendons and muscle, deep into bone. He remembered the girl’s face when she’d begged him to stop, crying, tried to throw herself between him and her friend. Tried to hold his hand at the end.

“But, why?” asked Philip, looking up at the dark cloud around him, “why such an obviously false lie? She could have pleaded innocence, or just asked me for mercy—she could have made promises. Why say she knew me? She would know I could not believe that.”

“Did it make you hesitate?” replied the voice above him, not missing a beat, “Did it make you wonder, and doubt, and think about letting her go?”

Those words bit deep too, and Philip looked away from the Spirit's voice again, feeling ashamed and stupid.  _Yes._  It was right. For whatever reason, her plea had been effective even though it was nonsense.

“Yes, it did," said Philip after a moment of silence, still looking away, "I suppose you are right. I am a fool, and easily manipulated.”

He felt the cool pressure of something he could not see on his shoulder as the fog closed in around him. “Do not take it so to heart, Wraith,” replied the god, “You are simple, but I have seen you become strong. Wavering does not matter if you do not break, and you did not back down.”

Philip nodded slowly, not feeling entirely reassured. He thought again of their faces and their cries and things he couldn’t quite place, feeling sick in the pit of his stomach. He turned back to the cloud around him. “Are these all the same spirits, over and over, or do they simply look the same?”

“They are the same,” replied the voice in the fog, “it is a process, Wraith, your purpose here.”

“Can…” he hesitated, feeling miserable and unsure and unworthy from the hesitation and guilt that clung to him despite knowing he was in the right as reaper, and for his doubt, for everything. He was trying his best, but he always seemed to fail the thing that had saved him. Always made the wrong choice, fell short--so much confusion and fear and he couldn’t even place where all of the emotions were coming from, or why they were so absolutely overwhelming, but after a second he choked them down and did his best to continue, sounding small and lost to his own ears, “…can you explain?”

There was a pause, and then the smoke coiled back a bit and he could feel the Spirit’s eyes on him.  “Why do you suddenly need to know, Philip, when you have not before. Do you still doubt?”

“No,” he said maybe too fast, afraid it wouldn’t believe him. “I…” he trailed off as he felt it reacting to his denial—disapproval, withdrawal, irritation. _What are you doing, Philip? Let it go. You…_ But he knew, deep down. It was more than wanting to know, he needed to. He needed to, or the look on that girl’s face was going to be in the back of his mind forever. Philip felt exhausted and worthless, but he tried again, praying it wouldn’t take offense, _I'm sorry, I don't know why, I just..._

“I’m—I just want to understand," Philip said aloud, trying his best to sound level and sure of himself, "What my purpose is for you.”

It seemed to think this over for a few seconds. Philip hadn’t noticed while it was happening, but its presence had grown so thick around him that he couldn’t see anything but the vaguest of outlines of the objects beyond him. It had gotten warmer too, which was odd. The smoke always looked so dark and cold.

Finally, there was a sound almost like a sigh and the voice above and around him spoke again.

“These spirits you chase down, this is their punishment for actions in life. You are their reaper. The punishment they endure is what they have earned, acting against others while alive. You know this already. But there is more. Each time you hook one for me, and they are consumed, they lose a little will to go on.  Eventually, they will give up completely, surrender, and receive their justice.  This process, it burns away their pride, their power-hunger, their maliciousness, everything they rely on for their success, and forces them to accept that they no longer are the rulers. A punishment tailored to fit their acts.”

 _A lasting punishment,_ thought Philip, _How many times must it take?_

Coiling in the air around him and echoing, the Spirit began again, “They often cooperate with others, believing the stories they are told by their fellow spirits in the fog of innocence and goodness, and thinking that, by showing small acts of altruism, they can manipulate their companions here into taking hits for them, dying for them. They still rely on their old strengths.” It paused then, as if reflecting on that. “They all think this of each other, using the same tools and tricks and each thinking they have the others under their thumb. Even in death and in hell, they struggle to rise on the backs of others.”

It was a horrible thought, people like that, using each other in such ways. _Even in a place like this?_ Philip thought back over thousands of interactions he’d seen between the people in the fog, trying to place them into these new categories and make sense of them all. For some reason that was hard. It was difficult to focus, to remember any specifics among the thousands upon thousands of memories of trials. It was all jumbled together, like a repeated nightmare. He realized then that the god had kept speaking, and he’d missed a little, and snapped his attention back to it.

“so they are clever, but even the most proud will eventually fall to death, to the truth, to their own powerlessness in the face of a relentless reaper,” finished the Entity, “and this reaping must be the work of a mortal of the kind wronged by them in life. There are rules to rituals, Wraith, you know that well. Your role is simply one of them.”

Little sparks blinked on and off in the mist, as if it was coming from a great fire, but there was none around. In the silence Philip could tell it was looking at him, waiting.  “And, they all died so young?” he asked finally, “or, do they choose to appear this way?”

That had always bothered him. There were a few older, but mostly they were younger than him—some almost children.

“They appear the age they thought of themselves as the best at once they have passed on to here, so for most that is a very young adult. For a few of them older, for some a variety,” answered the Spirit. It rarely had any emotion attached to its voice, but now it almost sounded miffed. “Have I sufficiently put your fears to rest?”

Shame and guilt flowed into Philip’s chest at the reproach. “Yes, of course. I am sorry.”

“Then do not fail me,” replied the Spirit, back in its level, emotionless voice. “Serve me faithfully and fulfill your goals in life.”

The pressure in Philip's chest ebbed and he felt relieved, if a little ashamed. He'd been thrown so many lifelines by this Spirit, and he still couldn't do his one job right.  _I should have known better than to demand so many answers. I should have done better._ He breathed the smoke in without knowing it, the air was so thick and full of the Entity there was nothing else to breathe, and as he did he felt a weight go off his shoulders, a tension in his his muscles ease. Calm, almost empty, and light. God, so much better, such a relief after the consternation of feeling everything else all at once.  _That's right. This is right._ _You should say something--apologize again maybe. Stop standing here like a fool._

"I will. I am sorry to have questioned," Philip said, feeling fuzzy and far away and okay for once. Taking a knee, Philip put a hand to his chest in a bow and closed his eyes.

There was a feeling of pressure, and sound like the wind or maybe the sound a flame makes, and he felt weaker for just a moment. Then he felt the presence around him ease and vanish and he was alone.

He stayed kneeling for a full minute after the Entity was gone, eyes still shut. Finally, he opened them. Calm woods, old garage, wind in the trees. He still didn't move. His closed fingers had caught something hard between his cloak and his chest and trapped it there with the gesture. His clenched fist was still held tight to his rib cage, and the fuzzy feeling remained, clouding his head, but something else was eating away at its edges, fighting for a way in. 

Slowly, Philip tucked his fingers inside the garment and found a small pocket with a little round object inside. He lifted it out and opened his fist in the dim light of the garage to see a tiny roll of gauze.


	11. Unanswered Prayers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of how Philip became the Wraith.

Dodge County, Wisconsin. 1982

 

It hadn’t been his fault. He knew that, and yet—and yet in a way it had.  In an awful way that he couldn’t forget about or let go of that was pounding at the back of his head. He had never stopped to look, to wonder, to question. _Fuck._

He’d known something bad was happening, god damn it he’d known. He’d known. But he had just wanted to be left alone, and to work quietly. If he’d only been looking, then maybe—maybe so many people could have been saved.

_Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit._

The rage and fear and panic and guilt and hatred were boiling and writhing inside, trying to get out, and it was all too much to control and there wasn’t a single fucking thing he could do about any of it, but he had to do something—anything!

“Fuck!” yelled Philip, slamming his fist into a tree. The impact sent waves of pain down his injured fingers and he stopped and placed his palm on the tree, using it to steady himself.

He hadn’t stopped moving since he’d left the auto yard until now, blindly walking quick, deeper and deeper into the forest. And now what? What? Keep going? Did that even matter? What could possibly be left for him? He was lost. Everything was lost. A migrant worker in a new country, no history, no background. He knew how life was. He wasn’t fucking stupid. He’d just killed a man—killed his white European boss, his Russian boss with mafia ties. And he had killed him. He had done it. He had thrown him into a car crusher and let it compress until it squeezed the life out of him, and now he was holding that man’s skull in his hands, dead eyes and chunks of flesh still intact, the blood dripping from it down his fingertips onto his shoes. He knew how this would look to the cops. He knew what would happen.

It didn’t matter what had been going on in the scrap yard; it didn’t matter how many bodies were in the piles of mangled cars, or what that poor fucking dead kid with his throat cut open still laying there in the grass by the crusher could have said, or what was true.

They would see what they wanted, and they would find bodies in the cars. Maybe all of this would be pinned on him. _Probably. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Or do they just send in a new Azarov, a new Ojomo operating the crusher, and nothing fucking changes? Or is it too much of a loss with him gone, do the cops come and I’m…_ He thought of trials, a sea of unfeeling faces in the jury, of lethal injection. He thought of being beaten to death behind a police car, or in a jail cell, or maybe hunted down here in the woods, dogs and flashlights and pistols leveled. Maybe Azarov’s people would find him first and it would be a knife in the back, or along the throat, or a bullet through his chest, his head, bleeding out slowly, maybe hacked apart, fingers cut out, teeth pulled, a bag over his head and cinder blocks around his ankles and dumped in a river to die cold and alone and blinded, maybe lynched and left hanging from this tree as a warning, or dragged behind a pickup for miles until his skin came off, maybe tied up and thrown in the trunk of a car and left to be compressed into a cube like all the victims who came before him.

The worst part was he was no longer sure what came after—he was afraid not just to die, but to be dead. He’d always tried to live right. _Fuck—didn’t I? I thought I did—I thought…_

Philip knew he was no kind of great person, but he had done his best—he had tried to do his best, tied to follow the rules of his old gods, of his family, of the teachers back home. When he’d moved here he’d done his best to understand the new rules, and to follow them, to not cause trouble, not cause harm. He tried to be responsible for his choices, to be good to others, just and honorable in his actions. Right? Wasn’t that right?

Everything was closing in on him as the sun set, and he felt cold and heavy and alone, and every shadow was a warning that death was coming, and he’d fucked up in a way you couldn’t come back from. He took a desperate look around—watching for any sign of movement, of danger. It was so hard to tell. He didn’t even know where he was—he’d started walking and hadn’t stopped until he’d hit the tree, and now he was just somewhere in the woods, and everything was dark and isolated and the wind was picking up.

An owl hooted overhead and it sent a chill down his spine. That was an omen, back home. _I wasn’t bad—I didn’t know!_ he thought, panicked, fingers nervously drumming against the bark of the birch tree. _I—fuck, I thought I was doing what I could._

He felt sick, imagining the sea of bodies around him in the auto yard. Every day. _How—how the fuck did I not notice? The smell alone should have…_

But it hadn’t. Or maybe he hadn’t really cared—maybe he hadn’t looked. And now without meaning to he had broken one of the biggest rules of all. So many times. _Gods, so many of them…_ He had killed so many innocent people. He couln’t even really think about it—process that information, do the math of the numbers of cars he’d jotted down on daily logs and translate that to terrified individuals tied and gagged in the trunk of a car. _Fuck. Fuck, what have I done?_ It had to matter to the gods he hadn’t known what he was doing, but would that be enough to save him?

Philip realized suddenly that he used to know the answer to that—as a boy, when he’d really paid attention, back before he’d left home and learned new rules and new gods and moved on, but he’d lost it. He couldn’t remember anymore—he’d abandoned that piece of faith across the ocean, and that thought devastated him and he slid to the ground with his back against the tree and let the skull and spine fall to the ground beside him, covering his head with his bloody hands and unintentionally smearing the evidence against him onto his face.

_What now? Where can I go? I—I have no one, I know no one here, how do I fix this? Please gods, anyone, please hear me, please listen—I know I left you long ago but I didn’t forget, please hear me. Fuck, isn’t there something out there to give me a chance to make this right? Isn’t there anything out there at all? Please._

The desperation built in his chest until it was all he could feel and it overwhelmed him. He begged, praying to his gods. Any chance. His seconds had to be numbered, there was nowhere he could think of where he could even just continue to live. There was no place left for him. No options. No way out.

In the distance, from what must have been a highway off to his far left, Philip heard the sound of a police siren, long and high. Coming.

 _Please forgive me,_ Philip thought, hopeless, looking up towards the siren as if he could see it through the trees, _please accept me back home. I’ll be there soon._

The air was chilled and the sky was black and cold and a second siren joined the first. Slowly, like a man walking to the gallows, Philip reached over and picked up the spine again, then stood. Around him, wind whispered through the birch trees, and he knew his time was up. Alone in the woods, blood on his face and hands, cold, exhausted, waiting for the police, Philip gave in and his despair overwhelmed him.

And that was when the fog had descended around him, and the trees suddenly were thicker and darker and closer together than he’d noticed, and he was on the threshold of somewhere new. Sensing the change, he looked up. The birch under his fingers dissolved into an oak as it grew up and away from him and towards the grey smoke that was everywhere now, little sparks flickering on and off like fireflies. He looked over his shoulder and he could still see the forest full of birch he’d fled the auto yard through behind him.

That was when he’d heard its voice for the first time.

“Philip.”

He went rigid, clenching the blood-soaked spine he was holding like a club, and the hopelessness was replaced by an animal instinct to try to live. It was sooner than he’d expected, but he wasn’t going down without a fight—not without even trying.

“There is no need for that,” the voice came again, bouncing off the trees as if they were in an auditorium, making it impossible to tell where it originated from. “I am here to offer you a chance.”

He’d spun with the voice, trying to find the speaker, spine and skull still raised, and then he’d seen it. Descending from the sky, a huge black cloud, smoky, shadowy, like living ink. Long talons extended from it like some kind of tree, or spider.

Philip stumbled backwards in horror and fear at the impossible thing in the sky, turned, and ran. He moved faster than he’d ever gone before, ducking past trees and beneath limbs almost blindly, tearing through the underbrush, and then suddenly he rounded a large birch and skidded to a stop because there it was again—somehow he’d looped in seconds running in a straight line, and it was right in front of him—this monstrous, gigantic beast in the sky.

Breathing hard, eyes locked on the shape above him, Philip didn’t run—just stepped back this time, the spine and skull raised defensively at his shoulder. His back hit a tree and he stopped, muscles going rigid and cold at the sight of the big dark thing in the dark cloud, something primal deep in his DNA taking hold and paralyzing him. It was the kind of recognition all humans have for things most of them don’t really believe exist, but they have all seen in dreams, a fear and knowledge coded in to them which overrides reason and belief.

The thing in the smoke shifted, and the voice came from it again, “You do not have to fear me.” Its tone was calming and level, and the sound of it made him want to relax which scared him more.

He looked over his shoulder and saw smoke and fog and past that, the familiar lighter evening sky and birch trees of the Wisconsin woods he’d been in.

“I did not come to harm you, Philip Ojomo,” said the thing in the sky, and Philip turned quickly to look at it, shaken by the sound of his own full name. “You called on me. I came to answer.”

 _Called?_ Possible answers began suggesting places for themselves as his rushing thoughts did their best to comprehend, and the calming effect of the fog made it past his anxiety and the fear faded a little.

“You do not have to fear me,” came the voice from the darkness above.

“What are you?” Philip asked, staring up at the thing in the smoke and almost unconsciously taking a step back towards the safety of the birch trees. It wasn’t suspicion, or anger, or even fear that accompanied the question. It was wonder.

“You have taken many lives,” the thing above him said softly, “and you have chosen to try to balance the weight of the wrongs on your soul. You have already taken the first step, calling on me for help.”

He couldn’t see anything remotely like a face, but he still somehow knew it was looking at the skull and backbone he was brandishing like a weapon. He hadn’t realized he was still doing that. Philip relaxed his stance just a little.

“I don’t understand,” Philip said, a little afraid that he did understand, and more afraid he would be wrong, “what are you?”

“You prayed to me just now,” it replied. “And I heard you. Even here, so far from home, my power stretches to my people. You have not been abandoned.”

A kind of relief Philip had never known was possible filled him. He was unsure, and confused, and on edge, and afraid, but—but this all should have been impossible, or unlikely, or—and—but still, it was here. Real, unbelievable, and powerful, and…

“You…You came for me?” Philip asked.

Behind him, almost imperceptibly, the opening back to the auto yard grew smaller and the new woods expanded, like a drawstring back being closed inch by inch around him. Philip barely registered it, his attention all focused on the chillingly immense thing in the sky.

“I came because you are strong, and you deserve a chance at what you seek,” the Spirit replied. “You have already killed the man who deceived you, and you wish to undo what has happened. I am here to offer you a chance at your soul.”

Philip blinked, trying to take in so much new information all at once. “I…” he had no idea what to say to a god, and he was thinking too fast to be able to pick a coherent thought out and turn it into words.

He had been so sure he was lost to the old gods here, so far from home, almost no better than a traitor. Abandoned by choice in search of some petty better life and regretting it too late. And yet, here it was—it had come for him when he called and answered his prayer as little as he deserved it—and which one was it—could he ask—should he—was that rude? Wrong? He was so relieved and thankful and terrified he would do something wrong and fuck it all up when he was so close to hope again and that thought petrified him and he choked on words trying so hard to think and put it into speech.

_You must say something! Thank it at least!_

He tried again, and his voice came out soft and quiet like he was afraid to speak. He’d meant to say _Thank You,_ but what came out was “You actually came...” He had to stop then, because he was afraid for it to hear him choked up and he knew if he continued it would.

The way back to the birch trees was a spec now, a tiny circle the size of a window, but so far back and shrinking still. The tree against his fingers was nothing but oak.

“Of course. I would not abandon you; I would not abandon any of my followers who call on me in faith,” it replied, its voice strong and hollow, cutting through him like a winter wind with no movement, sinking into his bones and making him shudder in spite of himself. He had never, ever seen or felt power like this. The shadows on the ground grew long and the moon was no longer the moon he knew, it had become red somehow in the sky, but as he looked up it flickered and was silver again.

Around them both the mist crept in and the thing in the sky lowered its talons towards him. Philip had to fight the nearly overwhelming urge to run from the massive thing in the sky.

“Now, come, be my reaper, my Wraith. I will take you somewhere new, where the old gods settle scores with those who deserve it, and you will hunt them down like you did Azarov,” said the thing in the sky, its voice passing through him and echoing around the woods.

Philip took a hesitant step forward, forgotten fingers still tightly wrapped around the bloodstained vertebra.

“What,” he hesitated, terrified of the thing that had come to save him, and then made himself take another step forward towards it, “what do I need to do?”

He was directly below it now, and the talons reached down until they were inches from him. Deep obsidian in color, thorny, and with veins of red-orange at the joints, they reflected light like polished steel.

“Give that to me,” said the voice, and somehow Philip could tell again that it was looking at the skull.

Carefully—reverently almost, Philip raised the bones and skull to the waiting unguis. The black nails closed around the trophy like fingertips and drew it upwards, and for a moment Philip was looking up into the cold, dead eyes of Azarov again as it was lifted past him. It brought back the reality of everything he had done, and he turned his head, listening again for the police sirens. Far in the distance, he could just make out a tiny circle of light and trees under a different kind of night sky.

“Take this,” came the god’s voice from above him, and the talons lowered again, unfolding to reveal something like the skull but not.

Philip took it and looked down at the weapon in his hands—and it was a weapon. The skin and eyes there moments ago were gone, and the bones were bleached white. Three wickedly sharp and jagged-edged pieces of metal where burned together into the underside of the skull, making the whole thing some oddly light three-pronged scythe of bone. He looked back up at the Spirit, questioning, but a little hesitant to actually speak in the presence of something so enormous and overpowering.

“I told you,” the voice above him answered the unasked question, “you are to come with me to become my reaper, Philip, my hunter of souls. Is this not what you prayed for? It is your second chance.”

Philip swallowed, and let the blade rest at his side. He looked back up at the thing above him.  Horror and fear were spreading through his veins like poison, but they were steadily losing out to the gratitude he felt and his desperation at this one last second chance. “Then, I will come,” he said, looking up at the coiled darkness in the sky, “and I will do my best to repay what I owe you.”

Circling about him, the black mist and thick smoke tightened like a noose and choked out the view of anything but the living circle above.

“Then kneel,” said the god above him, “and I will claim you.”

He was afraid, but he knelt, head tilted up to watch the creature in the smoke.

Slowly, one of the talons lowered until it was pressed against his chest. Philip breathed in the smoke and tried not to choke on it, tried not to shudder at the sharp onyx which felt as much like steel as it looked, but hotter. He did his best to look up and not at the claw.

“What should I call you?” asked Philip, trying very hard to find of anything to say.

“Spirit, God, Iska if you wish to honor the old ways, it makes no difference,” replied the Iska of onyx and living ink.

Philip gave a small nod, careful to move as little as possible. “Thank you,” he said, eyes still fixed upwards on the powerful spirit, “for coming for me.” He meant that. He really did, and he didn’t realize how much until he’d said it. Everything that had happened in the past two hours was so overwhelming and unreal and impossible that it was hard to process, but the bottom line was that he had been completely out of options and utterly alone, and now he’d been given a miracle.

“I always come when called,” it replied in acknowledgment, voice far more reassuring than something that looked as fearsome as it did should have been able to sound. “Now,” it continued, “steel yourself. This will be painful.”

He complied, taking a breath and half-releasing, then holding it. The long unguis at his chest moved up to just past his collar bone, at the base of his throat. Then, with one quick motion it punctured his throat, nail sinking in deep and coiling so it was hooked against the inside of his collar bone.

The action hurt more than anything Philip had ever experienced, and as his throat was torn open he choked, his body trying desperately to breathe with the object lodged inside it as blood streamed down and over his breast bone. His body hitched and he tried on instinct to reach up for the talon and grab it, but his body wouldn’t respond, and the knowledge that he couldn’t move was more terrifying than the pain.

More of its claws descended from above and two of them rested on his shoulders, one at the center of his chest, and the last over his forehead. He knew if that last one dug in he would be dead. Philip couldn’t breathe at all, but he couldn’t stop his body’s feverous pitching as it tried again and again to make the futile action and fill his lungs with oxygen, each time accomplishing nothing but digging the claw in deeper and sending waves of pain down his chest.

He couldn’t move, or speak, or even shut his eyes. The thing above him said “Don’t worry, this will be over soon,” and the claw resting against his forehead cut through his skin and bone and sunk into his brain.

Philip didn’t lose consciousness. He would have screamed if he had been able to, but he just choked on the claw as waves of agony slammed into him, and then the talon over his chest and the two at his shoulders dug in too, and then for a second he did lose consciousness.

As the nails dug deeper and deeper into him he was vaguely aware that he was moving—being moved. Philip’s feet dangled limply as the Iska lifted him into the air. His eyes tried to focus on something through the fog and the pain and he saw a little ember flicker and die in the fog in front of him.

“Take my power, and serve me” came the voice, hazy in the mist, “become my Wraith.” He felt an odd sensation seeping into him, like nothing he even knew how to begin to describe, and then a shockwave pulsed across his body as if the talons were jumper cables and he suddenly felt like he was burning from the inside, and Philip blacked out.

 

In the days that came after, Philip remembered that first meeting clearly, but he forgot the pain. He forgot the way things had felt when he breathed in the smoke. His recollection became blurred and foggy at the end, and it mostly finished with the talon resting against his throat. He remembered feeling different. Stronger, more powerful. Opening his eyes and seeing the world differently, with heightened senses and a new power to slip in and out of the spirit world at will with the Wailing Bell. He remembered being startled and uneasy the first time it had brought him to what had become his home—the Autohaven garage with the basement, and how it had explained the replications to him. There were instructions which came after, and a first hunt, and he could see those memories all strongly. The first human he’d seen in this place, the first time he’d lifted someone up and watched them be hooked as a sacrifice, the first time he’d swung his blade to bring someone down. Mostly though, what Philip remembered were the moments before the Entity had come, and the hope he had felt when he heard “Iska,” the way he hadn’t been alone.

Thinking over it now, that was still the part he remembered the strongest.

A cold wind was blowing through the birch trees which reminded him very much of Wisconsin. As Philip sat outside the husk of the auto garage, he let his fingers run across his sickle and went back over those memories again and again, slow, steady, hunting for some kind of answer, or explanation. He tried to put together a timeline in his head, from start to finish, but he just kept finding gaps, and haze, and nothing that helped any of this make sense. Taking the little roll of gauze out of his pocket again, Philip opened his fingers and studied it. There were a few drops of blood that had soaked into it where someone injured had handled the roll. Philip wondered if the blood was his.

It was such a little thing, a roll of gauze, wasn’t it?

 _There’s no way,_ Philip thought, _There just isn’t. She could have seen me take this, or it could be a coincidence. Why would the spirit lie? I only have one job and no matter how many times it saves me I continue, even after reassurance and explanation after explanation, not to do it correctly! This doesn’t mean there is any truth to what she said. I don’t remember it, and how could I forget a thing like that? …Although, I don’t remember it at all. Picking it up, or taking it…_ Unsettled and confused, Philip drummed his agitated fingers against the wood grain of the garage floor. No amount of concentrated thinking was moving fast enough to make sense of this.

 _I don’t understand, and I don’t know what to do,_ Philip thought, feeling frustrated and lost, and deep down just a little afraid that maybe he did, and he let his fingers close tight around the tiny seed of doubt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Interesting facts: Philip is, according to newspaper clippings in-game, from a "Dodge County" USA. There are four of these, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Minnesota. From there, the only other facts easily used to narrow down the area and time period are the items in-world and the lore facts, which include that a highway was created /after/ the events with Azarov, which means at the absolute earliest post-1969. The only two states which had new major highways which negate a "back-country wastes" trek created after that point are Wisconsin and Georgia. However, birch trees, which are found throughout the auto haven maps, do not grow in Georgia at all (aside from River-Birch, which is related but doesn't have the distinct black/white coloring or look that similar), but are common flora in Wisconsin. Additionally, the make and model of cars found throughout the Autohaven world as well as certain other factors like the shape of the gas cans in the gas station (which was thankfully very distinctive) helped pin the year down more, to some time between 1970-1986. It's really not possible, at least as far as I can find, to pin the year down more than that (although certain things influence a good guess), so 1982 it is. Special thanks to Lauren, my mechanics expert, for help pinning down cars and gas cans.  
> And again, thank all of you for the support. It really means the world.


	12. Welcome to Hell (with Meg Thomas)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life may be dismal, but everyone tries to find ways to make it bearable.

“What’s up, it’s your girl Meg back with a brand-new _Welcome to Hell with Meg Thomas_. This week, potential romances that could or could not be blooming.”

“Hey!”

Meg Thomas glanced over her shoulder. Jake nodded at her from a few feet away where he was assembling tools in his toolbox.

“Yeah?” she asked, not bothering to stop filming herself on her phone cam, but angling herself so her back was towards Jake so they’d both be in the shot.

“How did you get that thing fixed,” he asked, pausing to wipe his hands free of some grease, “I thought Chainsaw-Boy-Bubba wrecked it.”

Meg nodded. “He sure did, but Feng and Claudette fixed it. It wasn’t broken-broken, just like, he fucked up my battery. Had to clean the phone too. Get blood out of it. But we back now!” she added, making the peace sign into her phone cam.

“Cool,” said Jake, closing the toolbox and standing up, “mind if I join you?”

She waved him over and he sat down next to her.

Meg had been doing this for a while now. A couple of them had had their phones on they got snatched, and while the things were mostly useless in practical ways—no service even to call each other walkie-talkie style; they tended to get really glitchy and unreliable if you tried to do things like play distracting recordings with them during a trial; battery consumption was like, whatever the word for hundred-toupled was if you tried to use flashlight mode, like, the things would die in seconds—but they were still quite capable of taking photos and videos. She hadn’t thought to use to the phone for fun when she got here—she’d really only even held onto it for sentimental reasons. It had pictures of her with her mom, and her dog. She hadn’t been willing to lose that. The first few weeks, Meg would look at the photos all the time. She’d tried to conserve the battery, but it hadn’t lasted, and then she’d kept the husk just in case—just so she technically still had the photos, even if she couldn’t look at them. But then she’d met Claudette, and the two of them and Dwight and then Jake had become a thing—an actual group—and Claudette had suggested she could charge the phone using plants—like ye old potato trick. Which would have worked great if she’d had a charging cord. Meg hadn’t been able to use the phone again until Feng Min had joined the party. They all liked to think of her as their tech guru, a mechanical wizard, the hacker girl, and yeah—she was damn good at that kind of stuff, but much more importantly she’d happened to have a charging cable in her pocket when she got grabbed. That plus Claudette’s savvy had been the ticket.

Meg had had her phone back for a while now, and while that hadn’t helped them in any kind of _practical_ way, she’d realized that it was a big booster for her #1 coping mechanism: memes.

“We live?” asked Jake, adjusting his position in the video frame.

“Yup,” replied Meg. “A big warm welcome to Jake Park, my guest co-host! This is Welcome to Hell with Meg Thomas, episode”: she gave the camera the bird, “and today we are talking about potential romances.”

“Mmm, a tricky subject,” Jake followed up, glancing around the campfire. No one was off at a trial right now, but they were pretty spread out. Laurie was sitting alone over by some trees, Ace was trying to teach a card trick to Dwight, Kate, Quentin, Feng, and David, and closer to the fire Claudette was cooking and Nea was helping her.

“Yeah?” asked Meg.

“Of course,” Jake replied, “You know—we all could die at any time and do regularly. Lot of tension here. Hard to see what a lasting relationship would even be like.”

“But oh those summer nights?” Meg grinned. She flipped the camera so it was recording the others and panned it across the group. The closest two to them were Nea and Claudette, but even they were about 15 feet away. Decently safe verbal distance. “Let’s start with our co-host, Jake. Jake, what are your thoughts on potential romantic options of your own?”

Meg turned the camera to face him and he tried to look thoughtful. “Well, lets see. I wasn’t really expecting to be singled out first.”

“Thought you could dodge it by being on the show, eh?” asked Meg, “Oldest trick in the book. Not on Welcome to Hell with Meg Thomas, baby. Come on, fill us in, Jake: dudes, or chicks?” Meg shook the camera for dramatic effect. “The people want answers!”

“I mean, I have to choose just one?” Jake asked.

Meg put a hand to her heart. “The only truly good answer. You’re so right.”

“In all seriousness,” Jake said, adjusting the camera so it was even on him again, “I think I might have a shot with the Huntress. I’m just saying, she wants me.”

Meg laughed in his face, “I think she’s had you. Jake on a stake, many a time.”

Jake did a pretty good job of trying not to crack a smile. “You’ll see.”

“Really though,” asked Meg, voice mock-serious, “you’d pick her over everyone here—all these kind and noble friends? These drop-dead hotties with great abs?” Meg tapped her own stomach. “Go on, they’re rock solid, see for yourself.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Jake replied, “But, I mean, The Huntress could bench-press me, so.”

“Damn that’s a good point,” Meg said emphatically. She leaned in conspiratorially, “But come on—aren’t you and Nea pretty tight.”

He looked genuinely disturbed by that. “Yeah, in a very much sisterly way. Plus, Nea’s not really flying my colors, if you catch my drift.”

Hearing her name twice in a row, Nea looked up and over at the two of them and squinted. Meg turned the camera so it was aimed at Nea and gave her the peace sign. Nea nodded, said something to Claudette, then jogged over and slid into place between them.

“Hey guys,” Nea said, putting an arm around each and using Jake as a prop to lean on, “you filming Welcome to Hell?”

“Welcome to Hell with Meg Thomas,” corrected Meg, “and hell yeah—get in on it.”

“She’s doing dating this time,” added Jake, “which is a real shame because there’s just not much to work with.”

“Hey!” Meg elbowed him across Nea, which was a little hard to do. “I’ll admit it’s no Scare Cam special, or rap off, but I gotta branch out. Plus, a lot of those take group participation. I’m tired of you all letting me down. Also—speak for yourself, I got plenty of love to give.”

Nea smiled. “Okay, cool then—dating it is. So, in your honest opinions—”

“—Wait,” interrupted Meg, holding up a hand, “I gotta adjust the zoom for three of us.” She did. “Okay, also you didn’t introduce yourself.”

“Oh, yeah, cool—uh, Nea Carlson,” she said, sort of shrugging, “Repeat guest-star I guess? Serial tagger, medium-hot, the cool one.”

“—It’s why she says ‘cool’ so much,” Jake added.

“—Yeah,” Nea conceded.  “So, I don’t know where you guys are at in this whole thing and if I’m derailing the train of thought, but what do you think are the odds I could get it on with the Huntress?”

Jake gave Meg a “See—see what I mean?” gesture.

“Ew! No!” Meg exclaimed, “all you people are just a bunch’a nasty masochists.”

Nea held up a hand. “Hey, it’s not the hatchets. It’s the big bulging muscles. I want her to bench-press me.”

Jake repeated the “See??” gesture.

“Okay, well, back in the realm of sanity, true love, and living longer,” Meg said, ignoring them both, “I’m thinking the most likely people to hit it off are Laurie and David.”

The other two gave her somewhat perplexed looks.

“What, no nay-sayers?” asked Meg.

“No, I’m intrigued, explain,” Jake replied. Nea nodded.

Meg grinned and flipped the camera to face Laurie. “Okay, well, #1. Laurie and David are both a little older than the rest of us—I mean besides Ace. That alone is a pretty weak foundation to start with, but look at her. She’s a fighter. I’ve seen her with a sharp object, and the girl. means. business.” Meg moved the camera towards David, who was being mercilessly laughed at by Ace for failing to do a card trick for the 14th time. “David is a pretty similar dude. He’s bulky, a big fighter guy, and they both don’t have the sort of goofy-memeing charm thing most of the rest of us have going—”

“—That’s a good point,” cut in Nea. Jake nodded with her.

“Since they’re the only two really capable of being serious,” Meg continued, “it just makes sense that it’s only a matter of time before experienced and rough meets seasoned and tough, and they hit it off.”

Nea uncrossed her legs and tapped the phone to flip the camera back towards them. “Okay,” Nea said, “you might have a point, but counterargument—they’ve met, no sparks. Plus, they’d both be way more stable with a little ray of sunshine balancing out their life than with each other.”

“So, David and Ace,” finished Jake like a done-deal.

“No, jackass,” said Nea, “David and Claudette. Or Quentin. I guess Laurie with the other one.”

“Uh,” Meg pointed the camera back at herself, then flipped it to frame Quentin. “Excuse me—Quentin has a girlfriend back home. And he ain’t no cheat.”

“She does have you there,” agreed Jake.

“Hey!” It was Claudette. She had an armful of plants and was casting them suspicious glances. “You keep saying my name! What are you all doing?”

“Welcome to Hell,” all three replied.

“With Meg Thomas!” added Meg.

“Lord god,” replied Claudette to herself, taking her plants and leaving, “not this again.”

Over by the card game, Ace passed his handful of cards on to Feng and stood up, speed-walking over to the little group. “You kids say ‘Welcome to Hell’?” asked Ace, straightening his suit-jacket collar.

Meg made room on the log and patted it for him to sit. He hopped into place and grinned at the camera.

“What’re we doing today? I hope it’s one of the ‘Who Would Win in a: blank’ ones,” said Ace. Meg really was sort of their only form of entertainment.

“Dating,” said Nea. “You and David—thoughts?”

“I could see it,” replied Ace without hesitation, “I bring a lot of balance and charm to a relationship. Man could use some.”

Jake snickered. Nea looked unconvinced.

“Really?” asked Nea, “But is he your top pic?”

“I mean no,” said Ace, “but I am considerably older than you kids, so,” he sort of shrugged, “guess I’ll keep waiting for a nice, hot middle-aged mom.”

Jake high fived him, expressionless.

“Well, Jake was being dodgy earlier, so who for Jake?” asked Meg. “He and Nea both threw out the Huntress as their pick, so they’re definitely both hiding something.”

“First of all, Huntress,” Ace high-fived Jake and then Nea, “damn attractive woman if it wasn’t for the constant murder. I get it—it’s the muscles.”

 Meg just shook her head.

“But,” Ace conceded, “they do sound like they’re covering. And you betcha I’ll help you get to the bottom of this.” He surveyed both young adults in turn, dramatically thoughtful. “Hmmm. Well, for Jake I’d have to say it’s gotta be Dwight or Claudette, right? Or you. Seem like a slow-burn kinda guy. He’d go for one of his originals.”

Jake’s expression didn’t change. He just eyed Ace.

“For Nea, well,” Ace thought for a second. Meg flipped the camera to the waiting group, then back to Ace, then back to the other survivors again.

“Dude, come on, spill—I gotta find out who I like,” said Nea, leaning forward in anticipation.

“It’s gotta be a girl, right?” asked Ace.

Nea kind of shrugged. “I mean, yeah, if I had one it would have to be. Cough-cough, Huntress, cough-cough. But please, continue.”

Ace scanned the group, checking the possibilities one by one. Meg panned with him, pausing and zooming dramatically on each.

“Let’s see,” Ace continued, “Claudette, Feng, Kate, or Laurie…Oh, shit, or Meg,” he added, and Meg flipped the camera for a dramatic shocked frame of herself.

“Dude, am I?” asked Meg, turning the camera to look at Nea. Nea smiled and shook her head at Meg. “It’s cool, tell me later, off the record—better that way,” Meg stage whispered. “Oh, shit, but is it me for you too Jake? Damn, I don’t want to be the love triangle that tears your two apart.”

“Don’t worry,” Nea said, putting an arm around Jake, “if we found out that was how it was we’d just both ditch you platonically for each other. No offense.” Jake gave Meg an apologetic gesture.

Meg nodded. “Bros before hoes. I respect.”

“I’m thinking it’s got to not be Laurie, because you’re too scared of her,” said Ace, still on his original track.

“Wait, isn’t that a double-standard since she said Huntress,” asked Jake.

“No—completely different situation. Ace is right,” confirmed Nea. “Please, continue.”

“You haven’t’ known Kate that long,” Ace continued, “so it seems a little early for that, which means I’m thinking it has to be Feng, Claudette, or Meg, right?”

“Hey!” called Feng from over by the circle of card players, “why do you guys keep filming us! Wait, are you doing Welcome to Hell with Meg Thomas?”

“Finally,” Meg said, gesturing to Feng, “Someone gets the name right!” She turned back to Feng. “You bet! Come on over—group discussion.”

“No, don’t,” called Nea, holding up a hand to stop her. She turned to Meg. “If everyone comes over here to join the party, who are we supposed to talk about?”

Meg gave her a disapproving look. “This is a group effort. There are no secrets here.” She waved Feng to come join them.

“There’s nothing but secrets here,” said Jake, “but she might as well come.”

“So, do I go or stay—I’m getting contradictory hand gestures,” called Feng from where she still stood by the card game.

The mixed messages of Meg’s “Come!”; Nea’s “Stay there!” and Ace’s “Bring Quentin!” came back to her at the same time.

“Bring Quentin?” asked Meg.

“He’s a neutral party,” explained Ace, “Quentin’s got that girlfriend back home, so he’s the only truly fair person to have ask the rest of us questions.”

Meg nodded and turned back to Feng. “Yeah, bring Quentin!”

Quentin looked up at Feng with a pretty clear _please don’t_ look on his face, but she grabbed his arm and tugged him to his feet anyway.

 _Welcome to Hell with Meg Thomas_ had just started as Meg screwing around with her camera, but it had sort of caught on. I mean, it wasn’t like she had a lot of competition in the entertainment industry right now. It was dumb, and always excruciatingly poorly planned—question segments almost never got answers, attempts to spark impromptu competitions were often unsuccessful or half-assed—but it was a distraction. That was why Meg had started doing it. At first, she’d just been making little videos for herself, trying to be funny and dumb to cheer up—deleting them after a few viewings so she could have storage space for new ones, and then once she’d been in a trial that had been going just awfully, right from the outset. Somehow, she hadn’t heard the Doctor coming—of all people—and been snatched off a gen only about 40 seconds in and thrown up on a hook without even giving a decent chase and buying the others some time. Bleeding out of her shoulder and hanging there, aura blind and dismally hallucinating the Doc all around, she’d taken her phone out of her pocket, panned it across the nasty torture ward, turned it face herself and said “Yeah, so welcome to hell with Meg Thomas.” Claudette, who’d been hiding about five feet away coming to the rescue, had lost her shit in spite of the need to keep quiet.

That part had sucked, because the Doc had been on her tunneled ass the whole rest of the stupid trial, but she hadn’t heard Claudette—or anyone for that matter—laugh that much in, hell, who knows how long—since she got to this place. So, Meg had kept that recording and she’d decided to turn her private coping mechanism into a public service. She knew a couple of them thought it was dumb, or a waste of time, but overall it was pretty popular, and she’d even gotten Laurie to laugh once, so it was a well worth it use of effort.

 

“Uh, Quentin Smith. Apparently temporary hosting,” said Quentin into the phone cam. Feng had slid into place on the ground between Meg and Nea, David was crouched behind Ace, Kate beside him, Dwight was on the ground by Jake, and Meg had had Quentin move over to on the ground in the middle of them for proper phone-cam framing. Well, more like as-good-as-it-gets phone-cam framing.

“Okay, so, Quentin, thoughts on Claudette’s love life?” asked Meg.

Quentin looked over in Claudette’s direction. She was sending them all suspicious glances. A little further off, Laurie was ignoring them completely.

“What?” called Claudette.

Jake cupped his hands around his mouth. “Come join us!”

She shook her head and called back. “No way! Last time I did Welcome to Hell—”

“—with Meg Thomas,” added Meg under her breath.

“—I got made fun of for a week.” Claudette shook her head. “It’s always a trap.”

“I’m sorry, it’s so easy to make you blush with dick jokes—I promise to softball you this time!” Meg called back. “Look, I’m not even hosting, Quentin is! He’s actually nice.”

Quentin shot her a sympathetic look.

“Come on,” coaxed Dwight, “team building exercise. If you can convince Laurie to come, we’ll have everyone.”

Claudette shook her head.

“Okay, forget her,” said Meg. “Laurie, Laurie!”

Hearing her name chanted, Laurie looked over, surveyed the group, and turned her back on them again. Meg kept chanting. A couple of the others joined her.

“Okay, if I go will you leave Laurie alone?” asked Claudette.

Meg glanced around for consensus. Ace nodded. “Yup,” called Meg. “Red rover, red rover, send Claudette right over!”

Claudette walked over and sat by Jake and Dwight with a sigh. “I already regret this.”

“So,” Meg asked, “Claudette, how’s your love life.”

“Uh-uh,” replied Claudette, folding her arms. “You said softball, and that Quentin was host. Quentin, ask someone else.”

He sighed. “Okay. Anyone want to volunteer?”

Feng raised her hand.

“Yeah?” asked Quentin.

Feng lowered her hand. “Thoughts on the Huntress?”

Everyone else’s hands went up.


	13. Attempting Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philip's attempts to find answers aren't going as well as he'd hoped.

Philip Ojomo. Entry 14,597.

I have decided to try and speak to the small girl who claims to have given me the roll of gauze. I don’t know what is going on, but I need to find out.

Unfortunately, this has not been going well. Everyone runs from me when I try to speak. The few first times I was in a trial, I spent a lot of it looking for the girl. She wasn’t there. It was other people I know—the boy who wears a cross, the girl with long blonde hair, the red haired girl, and the one who stabs me when I pick her up. The next time I got the red haired girl again, along with the one who breaks hooks, the man who dodges well, and the older man. After I realized she wasn’t there, I wasn’t sure what to do, so I went through the motions. I was afraid if I did nothing it would draw attention, so I threw people up on hooks, but made sure to be in the wrong place at the wrong time so they could all get out.  Maybe that was stupid. I don’t know what I’m doing or why right now, but I’m afraid to do anything too extreme one way or another because I may be wrong.

Hell, what am I doing?

I don’t know. After a few trials I thought maybe I would try to speak to a different one. I tried the red haired girl—cornered her in a room with no exits at that terrible plant with all the torture rooms and corpses—the bathroom there. I lowered my blade and tried to block the door, but the second I wasn’t poised to hit her she ducked between my legs too fast for me to grab her and ran. I spent most of the trial chasing her and trying to get her to speak with me. I failed miserably, although it seems to have boosted her ego. She started to run around taunting me every time I stopped to try and get her to talk. I have not ever heard her talk, but I think she must be American, because I recognized not only the middle finger but at least three other hand gestures from my time there.

It’s funny, I almost enjoyed that. I don’t think any of them have been comfortable enough in their survival in a long time to taunt me, and that kind of petty competitiveness was like being home. Games at school, or in the streets after work. Friendly hate.

Still. The end result is that I don’t think I can get them to trust me, or to speak to me.

I can understand that. I’ve killed them all so many times, I guess it is foolish to expect anything but that they would run from me unless they have no other option. Maybe I should try downing one and making them talk to me when they can’t flee? Although, I’m sure that won’t make them want to tell me the truth. Or to believe me.

I cornered the boy who sabotages three times as well, and he also ran from me before I had a chance to do anything, even though I did not attack him. He gave me a funny look the last time. Maybe that is some kind of progress.

The Spirit is getting agitated by my lack of success. I know it does not usually pay great attention to trials, but the last one, I felt it watching us intently. I improved my performance and killed two of them on hooks—the girl who stabs me and the girl who is so quick on generators, and I think that satisfied it. It will only hurt my standing with the humans here though.

Gods, what am I doing?

I need to think, and I have time—I have nothing but time—but it doesn’t matter. I go over the same points over and over and find no answers. I have to find someone who will talk to me. There has to be a way.

Shit. I have not thought about it in such a long time, but I am very alone here, aren’t I? I always thought of myself and the Iska as…I don't know, a sort of team. And I know there are others like me here, in the woods, but. Now? There is no one for me to go to. I have to find a way on my own. I feel like I am losing my mind. Over something so little as a roll of gauze. Why does that matter so much?

This is stupid, I’m getting nowhere. I will try again, a few more trials. If I can’t find her, I will have to try something different. And I have one idea.

I don’t know who to believe. I don’t know what is true. But if I am wrong, if I have been this whole time, and the people here are just…people, how much more alone must they be? If there’s a god out there listening, I would pray for us both. But somehow, I feel that there is nothing to hear us.


	14. Giving Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laurie Strode is made of something stronger than most people could dream of, but after 40 years of torture and loss, what's left to live for?

It was October.

It was always October in Haddonfield, and it always would be.

Laurie breathed in the Halloween air and exhaled slowly, tasting the cold, but not really, feeling the chill, but not truly.

Michael.

Again.

It wasn’t always Haddonfield. It had been lots of places over the years. Auto yards, swamps, streets, decrepit houses, barns, mental wards, farms, forests, the meat packing plant, the preschool. But they always came back to Haddonfield eventually, him and her. Maybe he burned offerings to come here. Tonight, she’d been the one to do that. She hadn’t known the killer would be him, but she’d had a feeling, and she’d been right. She usually was—she could sense him looking her way; she knew he could sense her too.

Last time she had appeared in Haddonfield, she’d found the keys the old house where they always were, under the mat, and she’d taken them. She hadn’t known why. And then, tonight, she’d thrown them into the fire and burned them as an offering, and she hadn’t known why then either, but now she did know.

Somewhere out here in the mist, Quentin, Jake, and Claudette were working on generators. Fighting, struggling, doing what they could to minimize the damage and live a little longer. Sometimes, in trials when they were downed, Laurie and the others would crawl away from the killer who had hit them as the monster paused to step over a windowsill, or break a pallet, or wipe blood from their knife. They never got far, though. It never mattered. But they did it just the same, struggling to live a little longer. Struggle to struggle a little longer. That’s all any of this was.

The air was a little darker than usual tonight. He was going to kill them himself tonight, not offer them up—she could tell. They could often tell when a Killer had raised the stakes—if they had time to catch the way the smoke looked different as they appeared.  It wasn’t a sure thing, though. Not for most of them. But Laurie could always tell with Michael.  He was going to kill, not offer up. Who knew how many of them—1, 4? It wouldn’t be none of them. No matter what else happened.

Laurie saw him then—Michael—just as he moved past a hedge row and paused to scan the terrain with his slow, unrelenting focus. She ducked behind the little concrete wall and prayed it had been in time. He turned to look at her concrete wall and stared. Not walking towards her, not looking away. He shifted his body to face her.

 _Damn it._ Laurie felt the panic racing through her, trying to tell her to run and to hide at the same time _._ She didn’t run, she held her breath and stayed down.

_Again? Again? How many times have you killed me, and you’re still not satisfied?_

Michael took a step towards her, then another, kitchen knife raised. Behind him, a generator barely in their line of sight sparked and misfired as someone screwed something up. He paused. Her brother tilted his head, eyes fixed on the concrete, then he turned towards the generator and started to walk.

She should have felt relief at that, but she didn’t.

 _It isn’t fair._  She didn’t even know—she had never known—why he wanted to kill her. She hadn’t done anything to him, and still, methodically, like it was the only goal he had ever known, he came after her again and again with that kitchen knife, in a thousand different ways and places, new version after version of events, but it always stayed the same at heart—always him, always her. She would try to fight him, stab him, sometimes beat him for a handful of time, and then he’d kill her—always, eventually. There was no winning.

 _But there’s not for you either, is there?_ Laurie whispered under her breath.

Laurie Strode was tired. A long time ago, forced to choose who she was in the middle of her dead friends and with two children in her care, Laurie had chosen to be a fighter. And she had been. Laurie Strode had fought like hell. She had fought long, and hard—longer than anyone could possibly have thought a human being could last. But it had been a long time since that night in the real Haddonfield. It had been such a long time…

Laurie Strode had been fighting since 1978. She didn’t know it, but she had been fighting for forty years. Again, and again, and again everything had happened. People came, people went. People died. She died. She suffered. She tried to get out, and she failed. She was always running, always afraid. Sometimes she slept, and when she slept she dreamed about dying, or worse, she dreamed about being home with her parents and friends and she had to wake up. She had to lose the dream and remember her friends were dead, and that the normal life with chemistry textbooks was a lie and the nightmare was real. Laurie hated good dreams. It was too hard to say goodbye to them. Everything had been too hard for a long time, and still, somehow, she had gone on. She had kept fighting, kept running, kept struggling, kept going. Forty years of deaths, of wounds, of being alone and waking up from dreams where she had thought she remembered how it felt to be okay.

The truth was, after forty years, Laurie had nothing left to live for.

  _Why?_ Laurie asked herself. _Why do I keep trying? To escape? To live just long enough to die again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next? To win? To spite him? I don’t want to win anymore, or to spite him—I don’t even want to live anymore. I just want it to be over._

 _“_ God, please,” she whispered, knowing after years of praying that there was no one listening, “let it be over.”

Michael was going to be gone in a second. She had a chance to run—to go work on a generator, to get out and go back to the fire, back to the other survivors, and be alone there awhile and then come back here to generators and Killers and stab wounds and sacrifices. She might be able to make it this time—she’d brought a nice tool box. Laurie looked down at the little box with purple trim she had so carefully collected and felt more sad than she had thought she still knew how to.

“Wait!”

Michael stopped, and turned.

Laurie was standing by the time he’d turned, the little concrete wall and several yards between them. She set her toolbox on the ground and stepped around the wall as he watched her.

He started to walk towards her then, slow and sure, like a force of nature: in no hurry, because nothing in this world could stop him.

“Listen to me!” Laurie shouted, leveling the little piece of glass she’d brought with her at him like a knife.

He didn’t stop. He didn’t speed up. He just kept coming.

“Michael!”

He did stop then.

Laurie hadn’t ever called him that. There had never been a reason to. She had known. It had taken a long time for her to remember, but here in the fog she had. Remembered who he was, and who she was. How had she ever forgotten? Her brother. Her older brother. But what would have been the point of speaking it out loud? It wouldn’t have changed anything. It only hurt to remember at all. Michael must have been so young the last time she’d really seen him, but she’d been younger. Smaller. She remembered looking up at him and him looking back and thinking he was smart and strong. He used to seem so big, and a long time ago that meant something so different to her than it did now.

 _Why do you want to kill me, Michael? You need to like you need it to breathe. Why? What did I ever do to you?_ This feeling…sad—she was sad again. _Why?_ It wouldn’t help anything. There were too many regrets to count. None of them could be changed.

Her brother tilted his head to look at her for a moment, then started walking slowly towards her again.

“How long have we been doing this, Michael?” Laurie asked, taking a step towards him. Her voice was strained, cracked, ragged. “How many times have you killed me?”

He paused again, listening, knife still raised and ready.

“Go on,” Laurie said, taking another step towards him and extending her arms to the side, making herself a clear target. “Go on, forever—because you can kill me, you can kill all of us again, and again, and again, and it’s never going to be enough for you, is it?!” The desperation she felt was starting to seep into her voice and make her sound frantic.

Her brother was still watching her, no motion now aside from a slow tracking of her movements with his eyes. The steady up and down of his chest from his breathing.

“I might be trapped in here with you,” said Laurie, moving a little nearer, “but you’re also trapped in here with me. And nothing—nothing you can ever do will change that. You’re going to be stuck in this fucking loop with me forever, killing us all again and again but never for real. Going through the motions without it ever meaning anything!”

His head moved with her and he took a few slow steps, pausing again after a second  when she kept coming, until she finally stopped about fifteen feet away.

“You keep burning offerings, earning kills or whatever you do for the thing up in the sky that bosses you around, but it’s not enough. I know it isn’t. That’s why you keep doing it more and more, because you’re trying to satisfy a hunger you can’t beat,” her voice caught in her throat and she kept going, tears running down the sides of her face, “You hate it here. I know it—because you’ll never be free. I don’t know why you…why you hate me—”

He wasn’t moving towards her at all now. Just breathing, just watching her cry. Watching and listening.

“I don’t know why you want so much to kill me, Michael, I don’t know what makes you hate me,” Laurie was crying in earnest now, fighting to talk through it. “I just remember being friends with you when we were little.”

She hesitated then, hoping for just a moment he might say something, or do something. It didn’t even matter what. But he didn’t.

Laurie swallowed back the bitter-sick despair that silence made her feel and kept going. “I know you’ll never change,” she said softly. Her voice was quieter now—almost sentimental, full of regret and memories. “That’s okay,” she continued, “that’s okay.”

He took a step forward then, and then another. _Maybe he’s made up his mind he’s done listening,_ Laurie thought absently. She didn’t try to run. She just looked up at him.

“Whatever it is in your head that makes you need to kill, it’s been eating away at you for years now, like hoping to live has been hurting me. Because the little pieces of that we both get aren’t enough.” She found his eyes underneath the mask and met them. “Aren’t you tired, Michael? Don’t you want it to be over?”

He kept coming. Slowly—much slower than usual. Only about nine feet between them now.

“Go ahead if you want. Kill me,” Laurie said quietly, fighting to find his eyes again under the shadow of the mask, “Kill me today, and tomorrow, and the next, and the next, forever. Keep on suffering with me. You’ll never be at peace. I can’t ever really escape, but you can’t ever really kill me. We’re both trapped. So go on. How many more will it take Michael? How many times before you’re satisfied?”

She took another step towards him then and he stopped. Seven feet.

“Or,” Laurie said, “Or we could end this?” There was almost hope in her voice. “We could end it for both of us, I think. Give up with me.”

He was so still it was like he wasn’t a living being. For a second she couldn’t even hear him breathe.

“I can feel it,” Laurie said quietly, looking up at the sky above them, at the breeze shifting past the shutters on houses and the leaves in the trees. “One last time Michael. This time for real. Let’s end it and go home. Both of us, together. Please.” The last word was a whisper. “Let’s end this story. You and me together, just this one time. Kill me and give up. We won’t have to wake up this time. I know it. I think you know it too.”

She could feel it in the air, in her soul. She was almost used up. The last embers of a dying fire, nothing but a pilot light. She was so, so close.

“It could be over,” she said, her voice a plea, quiet and gentle and desperate, “it could be over for both of us. Brother and sister?”

She swallowed, silent tears still trailing down her face. Michael slowly took a step towards her, then another. Five feet.

 _I was right,_ Laurie realized as he got close, _you’re tired too. As gone as I am. I wish things could have been different. I wish I could have understood you. I wish you weren’t a monster; I wish we weren’t alone. I wish you were like a brother._

“Laurie!” She recognized the sound immediately—Quentin’s voice. “Stop—what are you doing!”

He already had to know what she was doing. She’d been shouting enough of it.

“Stay out of it, Quentin,” Laurie said, keeping her gaze fixed on Michael, not even looking to see where the younger teen was.

“No!”

She saw him then. His voice was desperate too, but a different kind of desperate than hers had been. _You still hope; you still believe in things, Quentin, don’t you?_ He must have gotten close carefully, but he wasn’t being careful now—just running, trying to get to her fast. She wondered if he’d been the one on the generator. Out of breath. She wondered how far he’d run.

Michael didn’t walk, just turned his head towards Quentin as he came, head moving with Quentin’s motion as he reached her side.

“Come on!” Quentin said, grabbing her arm and trying to get her to go with him.

“Let go of me,” Laurie said firmly, eyes still on her brother as Quentin tried to pull her away and she did her best to shake him off.

“No!” Quentin argued, trying to make her look at him, “Laurie—Laurie stop! I’m not just going to let you give up!”

“You don’t get to decide what I do with my life,” Lauri snapped, finally looking at him. His face was panicked.

“You’ll die!” Quentin begged.

They both felt Michael moving then, and Quentin hurriedly put himself between the two of them as her brother’s long shadow suddenly loomed across them.

“That’s what I want,” Laurie said, trying to shove Quentin back out of the way. He kept shifting himself in front of her again, arms out like a little wall and facing Michael now, not her. “Quentin! Stop! You don’t understand—I’m done, I can’t keep doing this—”

“I’m not going to just let you die!” he snapped back over his shoulder.

“Why? So that I can die again and again tomorrow?” Laurie kept trying to move him to the side, but he was stronger than he looked. She was getting mad, desperate.

“We can find a way out!” Quentin said, turning his head to look at her.

She shook her head, angry. “There _is_ no way out, Quentin! Now get out of my way!”

Shoving him hard, Laurie caught Quentin off balance and he stumbled forward into Michael’s chest. Laurie put her hand to her mouth in horror as her brother reached down, grabbed the smaller boy by his throat, and lifted him into the air.

“Michael, wait!” Laurie shouted, “stop!”

“Don’t,” Quentin managed through the choke hold, but he wasn’t looking at Michael, he was looking at her. Then the kitchen knife dug into his chest, and again even deeper, and Quentin stopped moving. Michael tossed his lifeless body aside and it rolled to a stop by Laurie’s feet.

She looked down at Quentin as his blood soaked into her shoes. _You look more peaceful dead than I’ve ever seen you,_ Laurie thought, feeling a pang of guilt in her chest as the blood pooled around his curly hair, drowning the little cross and saint pendant he always wore. A lot of good it had ever done him. _God doesn’t care Quentin. He never did._

She looked back up at her brother. He was still. Watching her. Waiting.

Laurie took a shaky breath and looked up into her brother’s face. What little she could see of it. “Don’t worry. I’m still here. I still want to go home.”

One hesitant step, then another, and Laurie closed the distance between them. She’d never _really_ been this close to him before. She had—she’d been carried around, stabbed, killed, but he’d never been still. She reached up for the hand that held the knife and carefully guided it to the spot just a little towards the center on the left side where she knew her heart was.

“I don’t suppose you want to take that thing off?” Laurie asked, looking up at the big white mask, “this one time?”

She could tell from the way his eyes flickered that the thought was horrible to him. She smiled. “It’s okay. I didn’t think so.”

Laurie let her breath come in slow. She reached up gently and put one of her hands behind his head, at the base of his neck. She could just feel skin where the mask ended.  Her brother stiffened as her hand went up, then relaxed. For a second it was almost like standing with a dancing partner. One hand around his neck, one hand on his, right above her chest.

“Goodbye Michael,” she said, looking up into his empty eyes and wishing they could look like anything else. “I know that I should hate you, and I think I do. But right now, I wish it could have been different.”

Laurie let out a breath and held it.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

Laurie was lonely standing there in the ghost of Haddonfield, holding her brother. She had never, ever felt so completely isolated and desolate. She was afraid too, but not as afraid as she was of living. _It’ll hurt,_ she told herself, one last weak bid at reassurance at the end, _it’ll be awful one last time, more awful than it’s ever been, but then it’ll be over._

Her brother dug the knife into her heart and Laurie’s breath caught in her chest and stopped. The pain was immeasurable, rippling across her, and the fear was worse. It consumed her as she felt herself starting to disappear. _Over. It’s going to be over._

Relief and terror, and then as she began to fade she also felt Quentin’s blood seeping through the soft material of her shoes and making her cold, and for a second she felt bad that he had tried so hard to save her and she wished she could have had the chance to apologize for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you so much to everyone for the support. Reading comments means the world, and I'm really glad to be able to write something people are enjoying. The next chapter immediately follows Giving Up and should be posted later tonight.


	15. 2112

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dying is easy. Living is so much harder. So why do we still choose to do it?

That was all. One, just one moment as she died where Laurie wished that she had the chance to apologize, but that was all it took. A sudden change hit her immediately and spread along her body.

_No._

Laurie realized her mistake too late. Michael realized it too; he felt the change and he made a sound almost like a roar—agonized, betrayed, and Laurie stopped fading and instead she burned out of existence as she died and burned back into existence beside the campfire.

_No._

Quentin was there, breaking off mid-sentence some frantic communication with Dwight to turn towards her. She saw relief flood his face.

_No._

Behind him, she saw relief on Dwight’s face too, on everyone’s.

_No!_

Quentin took off running and reached her, throwing his arms around her and pulling her into a hug.

“Oh my god, Laurie, I was so scared you were dead for real,” said Quentin, arms wrapped right around her shoulders, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

_No. No, no, no. I…_

She looked down at him as he hugged her and the others started to crowd around—relieved, happy.

“You had us worried,” said Dwight, “are you okay?”

“What happened?” asked Feng from the back of the little crowd.

_What happened? What happened…What did I—Quentin._

She got it then. Everything clicked and the voices around her filtered out as realization hit home. That one second of desire to keep living—to apologize—she’d fucked up, she’d missed her chance. That one second of having something to live for had betrayed her and dragged her back here. She’d failed.

_No!_

She moved Quentin’s arms off her shoulders and took a step back, silently shaking her head at him—at all of them—white as a ghost.

_No._

The relief on Quentin’s face faded into worry and the chatter around her quieted as she continued to back away.

“Laurie?” asked Kate, concerned gaze shifting from her to the other survivors around her.

“What have you done?” Laurie asked Quentin, voice lost and empty, “How could you do this?”

David’s eyes flickered from her to the smaller boy as his expression changed. Any relief that had been there was gone now, replaced with worry and uncertainty.

“What?” asked Quentin.

She didn’t say anything, just kept looking at him and shaking her head slowly, unable to say anything else yet. The others looked from her to Quentin and back, not sure what to do.

“Laurie—” Quentin started, but she cut him off.

“—No. No, it doesn’t matter. Do even you understand?” she asked, suddenly feeling her eyes well up with tears. “Do you understand what you’ve done?”

“I…” Quentin looked at the others for support, or maybe answers. “I tried to stop you,” he said, looking back at Laurie.

“You did,” she said, her voice uneven and ragged. “Congratulations.”

Nea took a cautious step forward. “Laurie—what happened?”

Laurie looked and Nea and blinked, taking a second to really register her presence. Everything felt foggy and far away. She wasn’t sure what this feeling was, desolate, and empty, like there was nothing left, but she knew there was. There was so much she was going to be forced to do and re-do. Emptiness in the face of too much to handle.

“I was out,” Laurie said, shifting her gaze from Nea back to Quentin, “I would have been out. I could have finally died. I found a way…A way to do it for real, and he stopped me.”

The others looked at Quentin. He nervously took a step towards her and she took two back, shaking her head at him.

“No, you stay away from me,” said Laurie. Like she was afraid he could somehow make things worse.

“He was just trying to help,” said Dwight, raising a hand palm up like she was a wild animal to calm, “he didn’t want you to die.”

“You don’t have the right,” Laurie said, twinges of anger creeping into her voice, “none of you have that right—to keep me trapped here.”

“We aren’t just going to let you kill yourself,” Quentin defended.

“What makes it your decision?” Laurie asked, anger and misery mixing together in her voice and coming out as desperation. “I wanted to die, and you should have let me! I could have been free!” Her anger was mostly internal, but it was so strong that she was crying now, and it made her furious she couldn’t stop. “Do you even understand what that means to me? How long I’ve been—waiting, looking for some kind of way out? And now?” she made a sweeping, desperate gesture with her arms, “How long is it going to take for me to get him to trust me again? To have another shot? God, Quentin, how much longer do you want to force me to go through this?”

He didn’t look sorry at all as he looked back at her tear-stained face, just confused and worried, and she was hit with a sudden, overwhelming rage by the lack of understanding.

“Well?” she shouted. He didn’t answer, so she closed the distance between them in two long strides and shoved him. He stumbled backwards into Dwight. “Well!” she shouted again.

“Laurie, stop,” said Dwight, moving between them, “it’s not his fault you’re stuck here.”

“Yes it is,” she said, disbelief coloring her voice. “Right now, it really is.”

“I don’t want you to die to get out of this,” Quentin said, “I want you to get out for real.”

Laurie was so angry she almost laughed. “Out? And how are you going to do that Quentin, huh?”

“I don’t know!” he shouted back, “but we’ll figure something out—you can’t just give up!”

“Oh?” she asked. She started to turn and walk away, then changed her mind, spun back around and punched him in the face. Caught completely off-guard, Quentin stumbled backwards. “You’ll figure something out?” she asked again, furious. “And what—I just wait for that?”

She started to get close to him again and David stepped in the way.

“That’s enough,” he said, voice low and even like he really meant it.

It wasn’t enough though.

“Quentin’s right,” said Dwight, trying to calm her down, “we’ll figure something out. As a group.”

“I figured something out,” Laurie snapped, “I was free. Until he fucked it up.”

She turned away angrily and ran her fingers through her hair, trying to slow down her racing thoughts and pounding heartbeat and think. _Fuck! What—maybe next time I see Michael, maybe I can…Maybe…_

“Laurie.”

Quentin again. She looked back at him. The cheekbone she’d hit was already turning purple and starting to swell.

“You can’t just give up,” he said, tired and pleading at the same time, “after everything—”

 _After everything?_ She snapped. She was so tired of being stuck here, of fighting a battle she could never win. And finally—finally there was one obstacle she could fight back against. Laurie threw herself at Quentin and knocked both of them to the ground. He hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of him and she landed on top and started swinging at him, again and again, driven by a consuming hopelessness and rage. Not even really trying to hurt him, just trying to make him shut up—make him stop. Quentin didn’t try to move out of the way as she swung at him and he didn’t fight back, just tried to shield his face with his arms, which made her angrier, and she hit him again and again, like she could undo what had been done if she could just punch him hard enough.

_You don’t fucking understand! You never listen! Just listen to me for once in your god damn life! You don’t understand—I can’t go back._

She wasn’t even seeing him anymore as she pounded, trying to get past his arms and bash in his face, she was just struggling—against what, she didn’t even know—her fear, her loneliness, her anger—no, her prison. This isolation no one could understand.

“Laurie, stop!” shouted Dwight, trying to forcibly move them apart. He caught an elbow in the face as she fought back.

Dwight kept trying. Laurie barely registered other shouts and felt people join in trying to pull her off of Quentin, but she struggled back, fighting with almost inhuman strength until finally David and Nea managed to drag her off him, and Dwight and Kate grabbed Quentin and pulled him a few feet back so he was out of her reach.

“I’m sorry,” said Quentin, wiping blood off his lip as Dwight helped him shakily to his knees, “I couldn’t just let you give up.” He did sound sorry now, and his voice was pleading. “I’m sorry you want to die, but I’m not sorry you’re alive right now—You shouldn’t have to die like that.”

“You still don’t get it!” she shouted, lunging against Nea and David, trying madly to break free. “I’m not alive!”

The wiry girl and the stronger man held onto her until finally, Laurie stopped struggling. She looked past them at the others, Dwight, and Kate, and Quentin, and Feng and Meg and Ace by the fire. “You don’t get it!” she shouted at all of them, “None of you do!”

The fury ebbed out of her and was replaced by something much worse. Her voice changed and became flat and empty as she looked around at them and their worried expressions and the fight went out of her. “None of you do.”

They were all watching her, wide eyes, like she was something unbelievable. Horrifying. _You’re all still so new, and young. You don’t understand yet._ It hurt her to think that. Think about them becoming like her. _You’ll want this too. You don’t understand…_ She looked back at Quentin, her voice still dead. “Listen to me. For once. There is no other way out, Quentin. Things are never going to get better.”

“You can’t know that,” said Kate tentatively from behind Quentin.

“I know it,” replied Laurie with absolute certainty, “I’ve been trying for longer than any of you.”

“Even if there’s probably no way out, isn’t it worth it to keep going? For some kind of maybe?” said Nea, her arms still braced in case Laurie tried to break free again. “For even some shit slim chance to go home?”

Laurie choked back the urge to cry and met the younger girl’s eyes. “Nea, I can’t go home.”

David’s grip on her shoulders lessened then. As they watched her Laurie looked around the little group and realized how quiet it had become. _You still don’t understand, do you? You haven’t figured it out._

“You don’t see it,” Laurie said hollowly, “But you’ll figure it out eventually.” She scanned their faces, looking for any kind of understanding among the scared people looking back. “I did. Come on, think. Some part of you has to know already. It didn’t take me long. I could tell from the way you look, the way you talk about the 90s in the past tense, from the phones…” _You’re all afraid, but you still don’t get it. You don’t—_ She let out an exhausted breath and her eyes picked a nervous looking Meg Thomas out of the little circle. “Meg, what year is it?”

“What?” asked Meg, looking even more worried after being singled out.

“It’s 2016. Maybe 17,” replied Dwight, hand still on Quentin’s shoulder.

Laurie saw Meg turn and look at Dwight and watched the horror spread across her face. She saw Quentin’s expression twitch too. Like they had both taken hits to the gut.

Looking out over the others, Laurie lowered her tone to something almost gentle. They weren’t the enemy. They were as fucked as her—they just didn’t know it yet. She took a step back from David and Nea and they let go of her. Laurie looked down at herself.

“Look at the way I dress,” Laurie said softly, “Did any of you ever really think we were from the same time?” She gestured at her worn clothes. “Just look at me. I’m not from 2016. I’m not from 2000 anything. I can’t go home because there isn’t one left for me,” she said, looking at Quentin, “I lost my home in 1978.”

They were all silent. Rapt horror rolled over them like a wave as they finally understood. She saw some of them doing math in their heads—maybe for her, maybe for their own missing years. Faces fell or became guarded, lost, confused. A part of her suddenly regretted having told them.

“You…” whispered Meg. She stopped, swallowing whatever she had been thinking of asking.

“I’m—what—57?” Laurie asked, looking at David, suddenly having to do the math herself. She could tell from his expression he was trying to wrap his head around what forty years of this would even mean. “Even if I got out by some impossible miracle like you all keep praying for,” Laurie continued, “there’s just…there’s nothing left. My life is over. It ended a long time ago.” They were giving her words their full attention now, faces grave as she met their eyes. “All my friends, they’re already dead. Michael killed them before I disappeared. And my family? They’ll have died of old age without me even there to say goodbye. There’s no life left to go back to—there’s no getting out, there is no back home for me.”

“…It could always be a Jumanji scenario,” Meg offered in a tiny voice.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Laurie said, giving her a hopeless look.

Meg swallowed, looking ashamed and miserable.

“I don’t get any of your references,” Laurie continued, sounding as lost as she felt, “I wouldn’t even understand the world anymore.”

“Laurie…” Quentin tried, sounding and looking a little broken himself.

“And you,” she said coldly, suddenly angry again at the pity in his voice and he flinched at her tone. “You still think you have the right to force me to keep living.”

“Please,” Kate cut in, her usually calm lilt wavering as her shoulders trembled.

“It could have been over.” Laurie said, ignoring Kate, voice harsh, “I could have been out. But you dragged me back. Because you think you know better.

“He was only trying to help,” said Dwight, his voice stern as he moved himself between them just in case.

“Well you didn’t.” Laurie said coldly, staring past him at Quentin, trying to force him to meet her gaze and hold it. “How much more do I have to suffer for you before you’re satisfied? Before it’s enough that you’ll allow me to die? How much more blood do you need, Quentin? What’s it going to take?”

He looked hurt, shaken, and she knew that, but she couldn’t stop. Somewhere deep down she knew Dwight was right, but something else was driving her and she was too broken up inside to just take this anymore.  It wasn’t fair, and she couldn’t live with it this time, and she wanted so badly for someone to understand that—to acknowledge it. She didn’t _have_ anything left inside to turn to.

“You don’t understand,” Laurie said after a second of silence, her voice giving out. “None of you do. I’ve been doing this for almost forty years. There is _nothing_ left for me.”

Nea cleared her throat nervously, like she was trying to think of something to say. David almost looked like he understood.

“I have tried every coping mechanism there is,” Laurie continued, “I _have_ tried. I’ve fought, I’ve prayed, I’ve been strong, and it doesn’t matter. _Nothing_ changes. I’ve learned how not to feel, how to control my panic, how to suffer, how to survive—I can repress, or accept, and slog on through, but I’ve used up all my hope. I don’t even know if there’s any of _me_ left. I’m already alone, even here, with all of you. I’ve always been alone. I just want it to be over.” Her last words were almost a whisper.

Laurie looked away from the people around her and down at herself. At her old shirt with the 1977 price tag, the waist high flair jeans. “Look at me,” whispered Laurie. “I’m too old. I’m too far gone. And I’m so tired. I just want it to be over.”

Nobody knew what to say. Kate was crying silently, biting her lip to keep from making any noise. Laurie wished she hadn’t noticed.

“And what,” Laurie had to pause to try and choke back the crack in her voice, and she looked into Quentin’s eyes, “what gives you the right to make me keep going?”

Dwight took a step towards Laurie, his voice calm and level, a little pained. “Laurie, you know he doesn’t—”

“—I want to hear it from him!” she shouted. Her eyes met Quentin’s and held them like he was the god hiding somewhere out there that she had been waiting years now to demand answers from for all the broken promises, for everything that had gone wrong.

“…I just…” Quentin tried, his voice barely a whisper, “I wanted to save you.”

“You didn’t,” Laurie said, “I’m already dead. You’re just making it take longer.”

All the horrified looks around her, the wide eyes and people who didn’t know what to do, they made Laurie feel sick, and she started to tremble. She didn’t know if it was from fear, or exhaustion, or crying, or anger, but she couldn’t stop.

_How long. How long before I can convince him to trust me again? How many more times am I going to be forced to die?_

Laurie sunk to her knees and cried. There was nothing else left for her to do. People half-started to approach her but held back at the sound of her agony. The intensity of her despair was so strong it made them afraid, the hopelessness and fear and hatred radiating from her like a black sun. Her shoulders started to convulse and she fell forward onto her hands and shook with sobs until she was so exhausted all she could do was stare at the false grass beneath her fingers.

Her voice was the only sound. Everything else was quiet as she cried alone in the middle of the only people she knew.

After a few seconds, Kate silently moved and sat down on Laurie’s right, about two feet away. She didn’t say anything—wanting to help, but afraid to make things worse, so she just sat there, close. Trying to be a presence. David knelt down near her and quietly said something she didn’t catch, and then Laurie heard the sounds of Claudette and Jake burning back into existence by the campfire.

“The Shape went crazy—you all wo…,” she heard Claudette trail off as she registered the scene, “What’s going on?”

Laurie could make out Dwight going over to them, people talking in low tones, but she didn’t have the strength to care. There was a quiet sound nearby then, as sneakers slowly moved through the grass and Quentin sat down beside her, tucking his knees up to his chest. For a few seconds he didn’t say anything, just sat there, hugging his knees and casting glances her way a few seconds at a time. She didn’t look back.

“I’m sorry,” said Quentin finally, looking small as he turned towards her. In her periphery she saw him look away after a second. Maybe at the campfire, maybe at nothing. “You’re right,” he continued, “I don’t know.”

She hadn’t expected that. Laurie listened, still motionless, leaning on her hands and knees, fingers digging into the grass, too spent to do anything else.

“I don’t have any idea what it’s like to do this for so long,” said Quentin after a little pause, “and I don’t know that much about you, or what you’ve been through” He looked back over at her then and tried to swallow the emotion in his voice. “And…I’m sorry, that I didn’t…that I didn’t get to know you. I want to.”

She slumped back and matched his stance, tucking her knees to her chest too, and letting her chin rest on them, still not looking at him.

 “I know I haven’t given you a good enough reason to believe me, but I…I do care about you,” Quentin said. His voice was quiet, barely under control—trying to stay strong and losing, like he always seemed to be. “You’ve saved my life. A lot of times. And you help me whenever you can, sometimes when you shouldn’t. That’s more than enough to know I want you to get to be alive.” He looked at her, hoping she would look back. “For me to not want to see you die like that.”

“There’s nothing to live for,” Laurie whispered, looking at nothing.

He nodded slowly. “Maybe not…Maybe you’re right.”

She did look at him then, surprised. His face was covered in bruises she hadn’t realized she’d caused until now, and one of his eyes was swollen and turning black. She felt guilt dig in deep. _I did this._ He looked bad. His lip was cut badly and still bleeding, and she could see him trying hard to choke back tears. He looked haunted, almost as tired as she was, and she remembered how peaceful he had looked dead on the ground.

“I know,” Quentin paused and swallowed hard, trying to get his voice in check, “that I talk about getting out all the time. But I don’t really know if that’s possible. And maybe you’re right, maybe it’s not. I don’t know. But I know I’m going to keep trying.”

A few feet to Laurie’s right, she could sense Kate was listening too. Where he’d knelt close by, David was watching them, almost looking like he wanted to intervein, but holding back. Around the campfire, the other conversations were growing quieter.

“Why are you telling me this, Quentin?” Laurie asked quietly after a second, looking back at the grass at her feet.

Quentin looked away from Laurie and took a shaky breath. “I know it’s not the same, but I don’t know what’s waiting for me when… _if_ I get home.” He let his chin rest on his folded arms like she was and stared into the fire. “Out of all of us, everyone Kreuger—the Nightmare—went after, Nancy’s the only one left now. I left her all alone, and I know she’s going to think he’s why I’m dead, and that he’s still out there, waiting to come after her. I know she’ll warn my dad—she’ll have already warned him, and told him why she thinks I’m dead.”

Quentin’s voice had gotten hollow. It was a sound Laurie knew well. She watched as he looked away, clearing his throat and trying to blink back tears.

“Back before all of this started,” Quentin continued, “when Kreuger was still alive, my dad was the one who killed him. I yelled at him about it once, because I didn’t understand. And, uh…we…we talked about it, after—I apologized to him. But,” he fought to get control of his voice again and continued, “I know he’ll remember that? And…He’s going to think it’s his fault—that I’m dead because he killed Kreuger, and Kreuger came after us out of revenge. And I’m…I am so fucking afraid that he’s already taken his shotgun out of the shed and put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Because of me.”

Laurie watched him, watched the anguish on his face. After a second he finally looked back at her and made a hopeless gesture with his hand.

“He might have already, and I wouldn’t even know—he could be doing that right now, and I can’t know, or stop it.” Quentin looked back into the fire. “I know how fucked up he was after mom died, and I know how sad he gets. And I can’t do a fucking…” he swallowed again and kept going, “I want to tell him I’m glad he did it, that he killed Kreuger, even after all this. And that I wish I could have been the one who killed that bastard the first time, but I can’t. I can’t do anything about him, and…I didn’t want you to die like that.” He was crying silently when he looked back up at her. “I thought I could do something…to make things better. To stop you. And I’m never going to be sorry I did, because you shouldn’t have to die like him. Alone, and scared, and sorry, and hopeless. …And…and I’m sorry I can’t…can’t fix it, that I can’t fix anything, but…please don’t give up?”

Laurie watched him and she wondered how old he was, and how long he’d been here, and then she wondered how he could look at her like that when her knuckles were bruised from trying to break his skull.

“I don’t want to lose you,” said Quentin, voice fragile, like it might break, “I don’t want to lose any of you. And maybe you’re right, and there’s no way out, but maybe there is. And maybe it doesn’t matter. Life’s just a bunch of things that happen to you, and things you do, and some of them are good, and a lot more are bad—especially here, but you have to have good things to remember at the end or how’s it bearable having lived at all?” He met her eyes and she held the gaze. “And I saw you in Haddonfield, and you didn’t. You didn’t have anything to look back to. If we all have to die here, it can’t be like that. I know I sound stupid, but you’re all I have. All of you are like family. Maybe I don’t even really know what that means. I’ve never had siblings, and it’s always just been me and my dad. But, I think...” he took a shallow breath. “I think I’m starting to? I hope I am.”

Laurie was silent, tears sliding down her cheeks as she looked over at him.

“I know you don’t believe in me, or in any of us—or that things can get better, or change, but, please, just let me try? Just give me a little time to try to prove you wrong?” Quentin begged, eyes pleading.

She was frozen for a second, thinking about the fear of facing another day like this, thinking about family, and trying to fight back the urge to hope again, and then she thought about how she’d wanted to apologize to him at the end, and how swollen his eye was. Finally, almost imperceptibly, Laurie nodded. “I’ll give you a week.”

Quentin swallowed. “Can…could you maybe make it two weeks?”

What had been a muffled sob came out as a laugh and Laurie wiped the side of her face with a palm. “Yeah, but don’t try to get three from me. It won’t happen.”

She was suddenly aware of all the others again, most of watching her so intently it made her feel miserable. Laurie had always kind of been an outsider in the group by choice. People died, people gave up, nothing got better. She hadn’t tried to be a part of things, it was easier not to, and she had been different anyway. But now, suddenly almost wanting to be a part of something for the first time in so long and not knowing how, she felt sick and afraid, looking at the mess she’d caused _._

Some of the others were standing and watching, but most of them had sat down around her, and Laurie couldn’t tell what any of them were thinking.

“I’m sorry,” said Meg in the silence. She sounded so small.

Laurie turned to look at her in surprise.

“I wasn’t trying to leave you out,” continued Meg in a choked voice, “with the pop-culture stuff. I didn’t know.”

She was trying not to cry.

“No,” said Laurie, shaking her head and feeling horrible, “Meg, I’m sorry. I know you didn’t…”

Ace took a few steps over and plopped down across from her. He took a deck of cards out from his pocket and started to shuffle them. “I’ll play you for three weeks,” he offered, looking up at her from under his brows and trying to get her to laugh.

It almost worked, and she cracked a smile.

“Can I…?” came Kate’s soft accent from her side. Laurie turned and saw her making an uncertain gesture with her arms. It took her six full seconds to realize Kate was asking permission to give her a hug.

For the past forty years, Laurie hadn’t touched another human being except on accident, or to rescue them from a hook or be rescued, to trade first aid. Not until putting her arm around Michael, but she nodded. Kate scooted closer on her knees and slowly put her long, gentle arms around Laurie and buried her face in her neck. It felt strange. A sensation she’d almost forgotten. Claudette walked over and knelt too, looking for permission before wrapping her arms around Laurie as well. They held on for a long time. Laurie could feel the other two girls breathing in and out, hear their heartbeats. David moved a little closer and knelt down beside her and awkwardly put a hand on her shoulder. She looked over at Quentin, and he gave her a weak smile, and she felt awful about the purple-blue staining his face in all the places she’d hit him, but she tried to smile back.

Dwight took a knee in front of Laurie and she turned to look at him over the two girls who were still hanging onto her. “Listen,” he said firmly, “two weeks isn’t going to do it.” He glanced at Quentin. “And we’re all getting out of here,” Dwight continued, turning back to Laurie, “together.”

Behind him she saw Jake nod, like hired morale police muscle.

 _You’re wrong,_ thought Laurie, her heart sinking a little, _none of us are ever getting out of here._

Even so, she could feel heartbeats that didn’t mean death and she remembered what it had been like to be a teenager fighting and smiling with friends, and for the first time in a long time, Laurie had more than the grim determination to keep going, she had the strength to hope she might be wrong, even if she knew it would fade soon and things would go back to the way they had been.

“I’m sorry about your face,” Laurie said to Quentin.

He smiled. “It’s okay, I broke David’s nose a few days back.”

“Ya punch a lot better’n him,” David observed, almost like a compliment.

Claudette and Kate gradually let go of Laurie. “I’m sorry I didn’t know,” Claudette whispered as she let go of Laurie, “Jake and I didn’t hear anything.”

“It’s probably for the best,” Laurie replied, tilting her head in Quentin’s direction, “I might have done that to you too. And I would have felt a lot worse about it.”

Claudette smiled and sat down by Dwight and Jake, and Kate went back to where she had been before. The others had come over and taken seats by then too, kind of gradually, and the whole group ended up as a sort of deformed circle.

“Do you…want to talk?” asked Nea, looking unbearably uncomfortable.

Laurie honestly didn’t know.

“We could try again,” offered Feng after thinking for a second, “meeting? Do it the right way?”

They had met like survivors in a war zone, fleeing and hiding, working together, pausing to trade names and tips and warnings—not like normal people, giving hobbies and stories, personalities, pasts. Proper here had never seemed like it needed those kinds of things. There wasn’t time, and they wouldn’t help you survive. Even some of the details they knew about the killers had stayed close to their chests. What did it matter who Kreuger was, or that Michael was her brother? It wouldn’t help anyone run faster. More important to know his abilities, his tells, his weaknesses.

Feng had a point though. In a lot of ways, they all really didn’t know each other.

“I’m from Montreal,” Claudette offered after a second of silence.

Nobody else offered anything up in the eight seconds of silence that followed, so Dwight said “I used to be a pizza delivery boy.”

Meg gave him a look that somehow conveyed horror and absolute joy at the same time.

“…I’m from Sweden,” Nea said after a moment.

“Do you speak Swedish?” asked Jake.

“Yes, I speak Swedish,” Nea replied, giving him a disbelieving look.

“LAN parties are a big thing, and I’ve been to them,” offered Feng.

“The fuck is a LAN party?” asked Nea automatically.

Feng sighed. “A bunch of gamers get together and hook up their computers to play online games.”

“Well, ahm filthy rich,” David commented.

“As am I,” added Jake.

“What?” Claudette said, turning to look at him, “No you’re not—you live in the woods.”

Jake nodded. “And am extremely rich.”

David nodded at him in a _game respects game_ way.

“Damn,” Nea said thoughtfully, “I should have flirted with you when I still had the chance.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Jake replied.

“Yeah, you’re right, it was a good call,” agreed Nea.

“How about you?” Dwight asked Laurie.

“Yeah, and how stupid do the rest of us look by 70s standards?” asked Nea.

Laurie looked at Quentin, who have her an encouraging smile, and took a breath. “Um, not terrible. Just kind of boring, mostly.”

“That’s…that’s worse…” Nea said to herself thoughtfully in a quiet voice.

“I’m from a place in Illinois called Haddonfield,” Laurie offered after a second.

Kate perked up. “Haddonfield—that’s in Livingston County, right? One of my best friends lives there.”

Laurie nodded, surprised.

“She’s the reason I have an accent. Hers is thicker than mine by miles. I’m from Pennsylvania originally,” she hurried to add, “but I stayed with her for a couple of years working on music.”

“Not that many people in Livingston County have accents like that,” Laurie said, thinking back.

Kate nodded. “She wasn’t from Illinois originally either. She was from Tennessee.”

“You’re a singer?” asked Laurie. She’d heard Kate sing. It would make sense.

Kate nodded. “Sing and play guitar. When I had one. How about you?”

Laurie shrugged. “I hadn’t decided what I was going to be. I was seventeen when I showed up here.”

“Is Michael the Shape’s name?” Quentin asked quietly. She looked over at him in surprise. “Earlier,” he added, “in Haddonfield. You called him that when he grabbed me, and you said ‘Michael killed them’ about your friends?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s his name.” _Laurie Strode? Cynthia Myers? I guess I’m Laurie at least, after all this time._ “And the Nightmare?” she asked after a second, “you knew Kreuger before?”

Quentin looked like he really didn’t want to talk about that. “Yeah,” he said after a second.

“Did all of us?” Laurie asked, looking around, “do we come in pairs?” Everyone else looked at each other and shook their heads.

Slowly, Nea raised her hand, pre-wincing. “I did disappear when I went to this old asylum on a dare where apparently some nurse killed a bunch of people to spray graffiti…”

“Nea,” said Dwight, sounding like the world’s most disappointed father.

“I’m sorry!” she replied, “I watched Scooby-Doo on Saturdays, not Supernatural.”

“Oh,” said Laurie in surprise, “I actually know that one—Scooby-Doo, not Supernatural.”

“That’s a real shame. Love me that monster hunting,” commented Meg to both girls. She looked at Laurie then and scooted forward, almost conspiratorially. “So, uh, what shows were you into? I’ve seen a lot of the classics. I bet you we’ve seen some of the same ones. You’ve seen Star Wars, right?”

“Yeah,” Laurie replied, “Well, the first one. The second one wasn’t out yet.”

“Oh shit,” said Meg, “Nobody spoil it! I will personally end anyone who spoils Empire Strikes Back for her.”

“I mean, I’ll never get to see it anyway,” Laurie said, “so…”

“Laurie,” Meg said, looking her dead in the face, “you will get to experience that movie if I have to re-create it here myself out of figurines I get Jake to whittle because I can’t.” She paused and thought for a second. “You know—I might could actually do that.”

“Can you at least tell me if Leia ends up with Han Solo or Luke?” Laurie asked.

Everyone in the circle looked at Meg and fought the urge to say something as she sent them back death glares.

Meg turned back to Laurie and shook her head. “No, but we’ll talk.”

“What about you, Ace?” asked Laurie, hoping to avoid more questions herself.

“Well, this might come as a shock, but I was quite the gambler,” Ace replied.

Feng gave him the most sarcastic _No shit?_ expression Laurie had ever seen.

“And,” he continued, “I have successfully passed myself off for both Jimmy Stewart and George Clooney.”

“Uh, how?” asked Feng.

“Yeah…” Laurie said slowly. “I don’t know the other one, but Jimmy Stewart was about 70 when I disappeared. And that’s me. 1978 me.”

Ace shrugged. “That did make it a challenge.”

“You are definitely lying,” accused Dwight.

Ace shook his head, grinning. “Signed autographs as both. And got paid for it.” He looked at Laurie. “Favorite actor?”

“Kermit the Frog,” she replied, deadpan. “Or Robert Redford,” she added after a second.

“What about your favorite band?” Kate asked Laurie.

“Uh,” Laurie thought, “This probably won’t mean anything in 2016, but ABBA and Chicago? And, uh, I also like Rush.”

“FUCK YES!” shouted Meg Thomas.

“Everybody still likes ABBA,” Jake added.

“Everybody still likes Chicago,” Kate said.

“I like Rush,” Quentin said quietly.

“Which is your favorite song?” asked Claudette. “I really like Dancing Queen.”

“Me too,” Laurie smiled. “But my favorite’s Mamma Mia.”

“Really?” asked Dwight.

“Yeah,” Laurie said thoughtfully, “been 17 for a little too long to want to be the Dancing Queen anymore.”

That prompted surprised laughter from everyone, completely caught off-guard by the fact that Laurie had made a joke.

“You all really still listen to ABBA?” Laurie asked cautiously, like she was a little afraid they were all lying to make her feel better.

“People liked the band so much that they actually turned a bunch of their songs into a musical,” Claudette replied. 

“And a movie,” added Meg.

Laurie processed that.

“We should sing sometime,” Kate suggested, “It’d be nice. There have to be songs all of us know.”

Laurie shook her head. “I can’t sing that well.” She turned to look at Quentin then. “You said you like Rush?” He nodded. “Which is your favorite song?”

Quentin looked down. “Marathon,” he replied, looking embarrassed.

Laurie shook her head slowly. “I don’t think that one came out yet. I don’t know it.”

“Oh,” Quentin said, looking surprised and guilty like he should have thought of that. “Uh,” he thought for a second, “In the End?”

“I like that one too,” said Laurie, smiling just a little. “God, I haven’t heard music in so long.”

“We could change that,” Kate said, “I really wish I had my guitar.”

“I don’t sing,” said Jake very finally. “You go ahead though.”

“Ah, shit,” Meg exclaimed suddenly. Everyone looked at her in surprise and saw she was starting to dematerialize, “Of all the goddamn times to—”

She was gone then. The others looked around to see who else had been given the short straws.

“Well,” Jake sighed, watching as his hand started to disappear, “be back in a bit.”

“Ah,” Dwight added as he started to vanish too, “wonderful.”

Laurie looked down and saw her feet starting to burn out of existence. Another trial, already.

“Laurie?”

Quentin. She turned at his voice. _You look so scared,_ thought Laurie.

“You’ll come back?” His face made it more a plea than a question.

She barely had time to nod before she was gone, and then she was somewhere else.

The forest. Cool air and leaves blew past Laurie. She could taste the cold, but not really. Feel the chill, but not truly. She let out a long, slow, shaky breath.

 _I want to go home,_ thought Laurie, miserable, the brief calm of seconds ago already almost lost. _How can I feel like crying? I can’t have anything left to cry with._

She wondered what had happened to Michael, and what he’d be like when she saw him next. If he thought she’d done this on purpose.

 _I want to go home,_ thought Laurie, _I’m so tired._

For a few seconds she stood there in the woods, unmoving. _I want to go home,_ she thought again, remembering the pain in her chest when she’d been stabbed, and longing for a different version of events where that had been the last thing she had to feel.  _But I can’t,_ she thought, thinking about how hard trials were going to be for Quentin with his eye swollen nearly shut, _I promised._

In the distance far to her left, Laurie Strode saw the tall light pole of a generator and she turned towards it and started to walk, the long, practiced walk of someone who had been doing this for far too long, and as she walked she tried to imagine what a song called “Marathon” by Rush might sound like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2112 is the title of a Rush album published in 1976. The first track is a twenty minute epic with seven movements which follows a protagonist with an empty life in a dystopian future who discovers music and tries to change things, but fails. When faced with returning to a world without hope and wonder, he has a final moment of hope and despair, thinking "I wish that it might come to pass, not fade like all my dreams. Just think of what my life might be, in a world like I have seen. I don't think I could carry on, carry on this cold and empty life," before choosing to commit suicide rather than live on in a life with nothing. The track immediately after is a three minute hit called Passage to Bangkok, which is about finding and smoking only the choicest of weed.
> 
> And while it reads as a pretty weird tonal shift musically, in all honestly, for better or worse but more often than not for better, that's kind of how life seems to be. 
> 
> The album also includes a song called Tears, which is a lot more tender than most of the band's stuff, and I think Laurie would have liked to look back on it sometimes in the fog. 
> 
> A special thanks to Drew, my Prog expert, for timeline confirmation.


	16. Dead Girl Walking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nea decides that with the odds of survival what they are, how she feels is worth taking a risk.

_It’s gonna be hard to tell exactly when two weeks is up,_ thought Jake absently as he cleaned rust off the toolbox items he’d recovered in his last trial, _probably already been a couple of days considering how many trials, but we’ll never really know. Works for a stall tactic._

Jake wasn’t exactly worried about Laurie. It wasn’t really like him to be worried about anyone. But nevertheless, he’d thought about what had happened a lot over the time that had gone by. He and Claudette had been in a house basement fixing a generator together—never even heard anything. She’d almost been gone. He hadn’t really realized that was a thing that could happen here before.

“Hey.”

Jake looked up and saw Nea standing there. He was good—alert, sharp, and he could still never hear her coming when she tried to be sneaky.

“Hey,” Jake replied, straightening up and setting the small socket wrench back in his toolbox.

Nea looked distracted. He knew her pretty well at this point. Jake wasn’t big on having to be around other people most of the time, but she was good at not counting against the maximum number of people he could stand at once, and they had always gotten along surprisingly well. Plus, their bad senses of humor seemed to mesh. He never used to joke around with people—he tended to like seclusion. Jake favored the wilderness, the interior of cars, and being alone, getting things done by himself. Isolation was a word most people feared, but he embraced it. And still, somehow here, in the most isolated and wild place he’d ever seen, Meg and Nea had managed to bring out this disappointing side of himself he hadn’t realized he still had. The whole thing wouldn’t have been so difficult to deal with if it hadn’t also been genuinely enjoyable. Who really knew why things had changed so much, or when they had started to. Either way, Nea’s presence had become a staple of life the way the sound of evergreens used to be. Usually she just wanted to come over and be vaguely sarcastic about something, but today she looked distracted.

“What’s goin’ on?” Jake asked after waiting a couple seconds for her to talk and getting no response.

Nea blew her hair out of her face and looked at him. “First, are you gonna give me shit about this?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Am I?”

Nea sat down on the fallen tree he’d been testing a saw on and pulled off her beanie so she could run her fingers through her hair.

 _Huh. Agitated enough to lose the hat. That bad._ Jake sat down next to her and turned to face her. “Well?”

She was jittery, spinning the hat around her fingers like a substitute stress ball.

Jake sighed. “If you didn’t want to tell me—”

“—Do you think I have a shot with Feng?”

He blinked. Nea was tapping her foot against the ground nervously.

“Uh,” Jake responded slowly, “I mean, she was pretty set on the Huntress, so.”

“I’m being serious,” said Nea, shooting him an annoyed look.

Jake thought about that. “Okay. Don’t know why you’re coming to me for advice.” She looked like she already regretted that decision. “Listen,” Jake said, relenting a little, “let’s look at your competition. If she likes girls—”

“—She liked the Huntress,” Nea cut in like that was a lifeline.

Jake shrugged. “She said she was hot, so assuming that’s an indication, there’s you, Meg, Laurie, Kate, and Claudette.”

“Shit,” said Nea under her breath, “and all of them are hot.”

Jake nodded slowly. “Yeah. But lucky for you, I’m pretty sure Kate and Laurie are both tragically heterosexual…That was a, uh, Parks and Rec reference if you didn’t—”

“—Yeah, I got it,” said Nea, “very nice, but what about Meg and Claudette? …I thought you didn’t watch TV,” she added after a second.

“Yeah, I don’t” Jake replied, “Okay, starting with Claudette,” he continued thoughtfully. “She’s nice, very pretty, but lucky for you she’s never, ever going to have the guts to ask anyone out while she’s alive.”

“Harsh, but I appreciate it,” Nea said sincerely. “Okay. Meg then?”

“Could be,” Jake replied, and Nea made a sound like she was dying. “I’m pretty sure if you had competition it’d be Meg.”

“You could have lied,” Nea said unhappily, leaning forward to bury her face in her hands.

“Did you want me to?” asked Jake. He waited for an answer, but she just made a vaguely anguished sound from behind her hands. “Look,” Jake said, “Considering how absolutely ruthless I can be and how little you know I care, why ask all of a sudden? What’s this about?”

Nea sighed and lifted her head back up to give him a miserable glance. “I don’t know. I guess, after…” she made a vague gesture.

_Ah, Laurie._

“I’m just…” Nea thought for a second. “I don’t know.”

“Just ask her out,” said Jake, getting off the log and kneeling back by his toolbox. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“She could say no!” Nea replied, arms making a universal _what do you mean_ gesture.

“Okay, look,” Jake said, standing back up. He wiped his hands off on his jeans and turned to Nea, “can you hold this?”

“What?” asked Nea, holding out her hand to take whatever it was.

Jake put his hand in hers.

“Oh,” said Nea, blinking at it. “Uh.”

“Try that,” said Jake, taking his hand back and returning to his toolbox. “It’s very tactless and mildly endearing. Should be perfect for you.”

Nea blinked at her hand again, then looked at Jake. “I mean, damn man, I kinda thought it was smooth.”

“It definitely wasn’t,” he said, not looking up. “Just go do it. Until you ask, the answer’s definitely ‘no’.”

Nea hopped off the log, mood apparently 180’d. “Yeah, okay. Why not.”

“Atta girl,” said Jake distractedly, digging some tape out of the bottom of the toolbox and setting it beside him on the ground.

“Thanks man,” Nea said, putting her hat back on and straightening up, “I’m gonna do it.”

“Hey!” called Jake when she’d gone about ten feet.

Nea stopped and turned.

“I’ll wager my toolbox against your sport light that she turns you down flat and breaks your heart.”

Nea shook her head at him. “Why are we friends again?”

“We’re friends?” asked Jake, grinning.

She flipped him off and headed towards the campfire.

 _Knock’em dead,_ thought Jake, turning back to his toolbox glad she hadn’t taken the bet.

 

* * *

 

“Hey.”

Feng looked up from the repair she’d been trying to sew on her jacket. _Damn, Nea. How do you do that?_ Girl was silent as the fucking grave. “Hey yourself,” she said, trying to hide the fact she’d been startled enough for her adrenaline to kick in.

“Can we talk?” Nea asked, glancing at the assorted people around the campfire, “Uh, alone?”

David and Quentin were a little way off, where it looked like David was trying to explain a maneuver to Quentin, who was repeatedly failing at it, but with small, slow signs of improvement.  Claudette and Dwight were having another quiet conversation together by the fire—they’d been having a lot of those lately—and a few feet away, Meg Thomas was sitting in the middle of Laurie, Kate and Ace, animatedly mid-story.

 “Why?” asked Feng, still focused on her patch job. She tied a knot and bit through the thread to cut it.

“Uh, the noise?” Offered Nea, glancing back at the others. Feng looked up and followed her gaze.

“And Bet Midler said that was actually her favorite role of all time,” explained Meg, picking a sketch pad up off her lap. “I’m going to go scene by scene, and I already drew references pictures. It’s gonna be fucking lit.”

Ace was totally into it. Laurie looked at Kate like she wasn’t sure the two of them should have agreed to this. Kate shrugged and looked at Meg. “Are ya sure it wouldn’t be better just to show it to us sometime?”

Meg shook her head. “And miss my chance to perform? I’ve been waiting my whole life to sing that number to a live studio audience.”

“Who…?” Laurie started to ask, trying to remember a name.

“Oh, you’d be Binx, for sure,” said Meg with the clarity of a Pope.

“That…wasn’t what I was going to ask,” Laurie said uncertainly, “wait, didn’t you say Binx was a cat?”

“Yeah, but he’s also the mvp,” Meg replied.

Feng looked from them back to Nea. “Yeah, okay, I see your point. Sure.” She set down her jacket and stood up. “Let’s go.”

 

Nea led Feng to the edge of the woods by camp. Some of them went into the woods regularly—Jake, Meg, Claudette. Occasionally someone else would go to help Claudette gather plants, but for the most part the rest of them stayed put by the fire and the clearing. It felt…Safer. And that wasn’t all. See—they hadn’t exactly worked all of this out for sure, but Nea was convinced there was more than one campfire. She’d come to this place, again, and again, and even after bumping into some other people in trials, she almost always used to end up alone. It wasn’t until she’d escaped with Dwight once that she’d come to this place with someone else. Since then, it had been the same. She always made it back to the group, but she felt like it was because she was trying to, and she was always a little afraid that someday she’d get lost and show up at the matching fire that was void of people again.

The forest was new to Nea. She’d gone with Claudette a few times and taken the occasional trip to explore just a little, but it was still almost completely uncharted territory. Everything seemed deeper and stranger the second she stepped out of the clearing, like she was entirely somewhere new, and ancient, and dangerous.

All of that was just background noise to Nea tonight, though. She was focused on the girl to her right, wearing her metallic team uniform from the life she used to have, bob cut just a little bedraggled in a way that made Nea’s heart speed up.

Once they were just inside the tree line, Nea stopped and turned to Feng. The other girl seemed pretty at ease, but curious, waiting for some kind of explanation.

“So, uh,” Nea started, floundering immediately.

Feng waited a second for her to keep going.

“Uh,” Nea tried again. _Shit, why didn’t I plan anything I was going to say ahead of time? That would have been so easy. God. This isn’t good, she’s looking at you funny, say something, dumbass._ She cleared her throat. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“…Yeah…?” Feng prompted after a second. She’d gone from looking mildly interested to mildly confused.

“Listen, uh,” _fuck,_ thought Nea, _why didn’t you rehearse at all?!_

Feng awkwardly cleared her own throat and glanced around. “Yeah?”

“Can you hold something for me?” Nea choked out after a second.

Very warily, Feng extended her hand as if she were expecting Nea to put a snake in it.

 _Shit, wait, what am I thinking, I’m not doing that,_ thought Nea. She waved a hand. “Nevermind. Uh,”

“Nea, what’s going on?” asked Feng, dropping her hand back to her side, “you’re being really weird.”

Nea took a big breath and slowly let it out. “Okay,” she said, trying to steady her nerves, “yeah, I know I am—sorry.” She shuffled her feet for a second. “Okay, yeah, this isn’t getting any easier.” Nea took a deep breath. “I like you.”

It took a second to hit, and then Feng’s expression changed. Her eyes which had been narrowed with vague suspicion widened and shifted away from Nea like she suddenly didn’t know what to look at. “Uh,” Feng started.

Quickly holding up a hand, Nea kept going. “Look, you don’t have to give me an answer right now if you can’t, or if you just don’t want to, but, I wanted you to know.”

Feng looked like she’d walked in on her brother and his best friend making out, or a cryptid in her room stealing her hard drive.

 _That’s probably not a great sign,_ thought Nea desperately. “After what happened with Laurie,” Nea continued, “I just wanted to make sure you knew. In case it mattered to you—and, uh, because it does matter to me—but I promise I’m not going to be shitty about it,” Nea hurried to add, “like, if you have no interest back I’m not going to be an asshole during trials or something—I wouldn’t do that. Nothing has to change if you don’t want it to, but, uh…” her steam sort of died out and she trailed off.

“…Are you,” Feng started again and then hesitated after a second, “…like, are you being serious?” she asked.

Nea nodded. Her face had drained of its color and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. _Shit, shit. I should have waited and thought this through better. I didn’t like even bring flowers or something to giver her as a gift—fuck, are you supposed to do that when you ask a girl out? God damn it, why did I ask Jake? For all I know he’s never had a girlfriend, I should have asked David! Or Quentin! Probably not Dwight though… Oh man, I fucked up. God…_

Feng didn’t say anything, she just bit her lip uncomfortably.

“I-I am,” said Nea, just in case somehow the nod hadn’t been translated properly, “being serious.”

“Like, romantically?” Feng asked again.

“Yeah,” Nea choked out. She cleared her throat nervously.

“Okay…Why?” asked Feng, still watching her with an odd expression on her face that looked somewhere between discomfort and confusion.

_Why?_

Nea hadn’t expected that at all. “Uh. What?” she blinked, taking a second to run the question through her head. “Because…you’re…awesome?”

Feng was still giving her that almost wary look. “So…you like me because I fix gens well?”

 _What the fuck is happening right now?_ Nea thought, panicking internally. “No,” she replied quickly, “I mean, that’s pretty cool, but…Uh,”

 _Why?_ Nea realized suddenly she didn’t really know why. She knew she meant it—being around Feng changed everything for her. It made things better because… _Oh no, oh fuck, I don’t like her do I? This is worse than that,_ Nea realized, heart sinking and fluttering all at once. _Oh God._

She looked at Feng and suddenly it dawned on her that she was taking way too long to say something.  “It’s because you’re my friend,” Nea hurried, “but, uh, it’s different from that too.”

Feng was watching her carefully, still hard to read. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I don’t really know how to say this,” Nea said, feeling like she was going to die of embarrassment, “So uh—I guess I’ll just give it a go. Uh. When I…Okay,” she  took a deep breath, “The very first time I met you, I immediately thought that I wanted to get to know you—and I guess probably some of that’s because you’re super fucking hot, but that wasn’t the only—fuck, I sound like such an idiot—I’m sorry, I really don’t know how to say this kind of thing and I know I’m fucking it up. I’ve never felt like this before—give me a second.”

_Okay, think. Try to make sense. Lord, please Nea, make sense._

Feng was still silent, listening almost suspicious. Looking at her, Nea felt some of what she was trying to express come together as the emotions solidified.

“I look at you,” Nea said slowly after thinking for a second, “and I feel like…look, I’m never sure of anything in my life, or care that much about it, but when I see you, I _know_ that I want to be with you. And I don’t even really mean like, be-with-you date-you, I mean I want to see every good thing that happens to you for the rest of your life. And like, I _know_ that. I know I want that, and that it’s super important to me. I feel like you’re a story that I want to be a part of. And it’s not just that I think you’re smart, and tough, and gorgeous—it’s like…I saw you and I thought ‘Whoa. there’s somebody I want to see get a happy ending’—I don’t really know how to explain that. And like, not just that—I want to see the rest of it to, I thought ‘I want to see her wake up, and tell jokes, and watch movies, and do dumb shit, and open Christmas presents.’”

Feng looked even more surprised now, and Nea was afraid that she looked a little cornered. She didn’t want that—she tried to think of some way to fix it.

“I-I want to see you be happy,” Nea said, trying to make sense of how she felt, “I want to see it, and I want to help it happen—I wanna _make_ it happen. Because, I think whatever you’re gonna do, it’s gonna be something I want to get to remember. I wanna be there for all of it.’”

She looked at Feng’s face, trying to read the emotion on it, and she couldn’t. Feng started to say something and then stopped, so Nea kept going.

“I don’t know how to answer your question because I don’t think it’s really something about you—that is—I mean, I think it’s _you_ —not some part, like, that’s just how I feel whenever I see you. Not because you’re smart, or amazing, or whatever. When I look in your eyes I don’t really think about one thing you do. I just think: ‘that’s Feng. She’s the girl going places, going somewhere good,’ and…I want to be there with you,” Nea said, afraid now that everything she was saying sounded wrong, “I want it because I want to see you get that ending, and also because when I’m with you, you make me feel like I might be somebody to remember too.” She looked down. “Like you believe in me…Or, at least, you make me feel like it matters who I am. Not just that I’m here.”

“…Oh,” said Feng after a few seconds of the silence that lingered when Nea finished. She looked down at her shoes for a moment, and then back up at Nea. “…Do you really mean all that?”

Nea nodded. _Yeah. I really do._

Feng looked away, thinking something over for a second. Finally, she took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” said Feng, sounding sorry, “but I don’t think I can say yes.”

“Oh.” Nea felt her heart sink.

“I never thought about it before,” said Feng, “but…yeah. I was gonna say yes, but I don’t think I can now.”

Nea had known that rejection might be a thing, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. It was different than she expected though. She felt confused, and the pain stung like a slap.

Across from her, Feng looked agitated, like she was trying to solve a problem in her head.

“This stuff you’re talking about—the way you say you feel about me,” said Feng, “I don’t feel like that about you. And I think it would be shitty of me to act like I do.”

Nea felt her heart sink lower.  _I shouldn’t have done this. Fuck me. God, I’m stupid._

“I don’t think about you all the time,” Feng continued, “Or feel like I need to see how stuff goes for you. I’m just…I guess I’m not like that.” She sounded like she was discovering this as she spoke, and she looked like she’d been hit by a car. “Nea, nobody’s ever said anything like that to me before. Not my mom, or my dad, or any of the guys who’ve asked me out. I don’t even know how to feel about it. Maybe sad. Like, I’ve always done better on my own—I mean, I’ve been a part of teams, and that’s all good, but when it comes down to it, I depend on _me_ to win, not the team, and I’m here to help _me_ perform, not anybody else. That makes me sound like an asshole,” added Feng, “but it’s the truth. It’s just who I am. I don’t think I can know how to be different.”

There was a sickening feeling in Nea’s chest, an ache that felt physical more than emotional, like she was hurt inside by some collapsing organ. It wasn’t that she was angry or hurt that Feng didn’t think she was good enough, or that she was being turned down and rebuffed, it was that she felt like somehow by asking she’d made Feng feel worse. It was also that she’d only just realized it, but Nea had started making plans in her head—she hadn’t known until now, but there were dozens of little memories of things she’d only thought _might_ happen, and losing those wounded her.

“I’m not like you think I am,” said Feng, “I’m selfish, and I don’t think I can change. What I do works. I don’t want to stop. It’s what I know how to be.” She paused and relented a little. “I don’t mean that I don’t care about you. I like you, a lot, but, not like you like me. I could keep going without you, and I’d be fine. I…”

Feng stopped then and her face scrunched up into a frown. She made a sound almost like “huh” and muttered something Nea couldn’t catch.

“At least, I think so,” she said after a second, sounding less sure.

“I don’t think you’re an asshole,” said Nea, trying to sound less shaky than she felt, “I like how you are. Even if you don’t like me. But I think you’re better than you think you are.”

“You sound like a mom,” said Feng, eyeing her, “or Dwight.”

_Yeah, I probably do._

Nea shrugged. “I just wanted you to know. It’s okay that you don’t feel the same way.” It wasn’t okay, but it would be, eventually. Maybe. At least she would keep her promise not to change how she acted.

“I’m sorry,” Feng said, actually looking sorry, “that I’m not like you.”

“I’m glad you aren’t,” said Nea, smiling at her friend even though she felt like her heart was dying. “Should we…uh?” she added after a second, awkwardly looking down at her hands and then holding one out.

Feng took it and the two of them shook hands. Nea wasn’t sure why she’d felt like that was what should be done, it felt ridiculous once she was doing it. After shaking it, she held onto Feng’s hand for a second longer, and then took a step forward and kissed her on the forehead.

 _That’s more like I feel,_ Nea thought as she drew back, _better goodbye to an idea than a handshake._

“I’ll, uh,” Nea said, stuffing her hands in her pockets, “see you back at camp. Good luck,” she added through a sort of choked voice, doing her best to smile.

She had gone about ten feet when she heard Feng’s voice from behind her.

“Hey.”

Nea paused and turned around.

Feng was standing there, holding out her hand. Nea hesitated, then walked back and took the hand, wondering if this meant a hug. It didn’t. Once she had Nea’s hand, Feng didn’t say anything, she just started to walk deeper into the woods. Nea’s only choices were to go along or to resist, so she followed.

“Where are we going?” Nea asked after a second.

Feng didn’t say anything.

They kept going until they were a few minutes from camp, near some boulders and dense trees, and finally Feng let go of Nea’s hand and stopped and turned to face her.

“I’m sorry I said all that, and I’m really confused right now,” Feng said, shoulders squared, “and I don’t know what it’s like to care about somebody like you mean,” Feng continued, locking eyes with Nea, “You know that, right?”

Nea nodded slowly. “I don’t really either,” she replied, “I haven’t cared like it before.”

“I feel bad though, because I didn’t want you to just leave,” Feng said after a second, looking agitated. “But I should, because I’m sad all the time and lonely, and I don’t know how to like someone, and that can’t be good reasons to want you to stay. But I do feel a little bit more okay whenever you’re here, like it’s a little better, and…I guess. If you know all that, and you still want to find out...”

She trailed off, and Nea was left not completely sure what that meant.

“Uh,” Nea asked after a second, “what?”

Feng took a step forward and suddenly she was very close to Nea.

“Even if you know it probably won’t work, do you still want to give us a shot?” Feng asked. She said it more like a challenge to back down than an offer, on edge and tense herself. Her face was inches from Nea’s, and Nea could hear her breathing—even, but a little fast.

“Yeah,” Nea replied, her heartbeat quickening to match pace, “I do.”

“Okay?” asked Feng. Her intensity turned hesitant and she looked almost afraid. Last chance to back out.

“Yeah,” Nea replied again, more sure, “I want to try with you.”

“Are you totally sure?” asked Feng.

“No, I changed my mind,” said Nea, unable to stop herself, “Yes I’m sure.”

Feng bit her lip and smiled at Nea, almost laughing. Then, slowly, almost gingerly, Feng reached up and took Nea’s face in her hands and pulled her into a kiss.

For a second after their lips met, everything was long and slow. Nea felt herself breathe in and Feng breathe out, and there was only the sensation of warmth and life, and then it became something entirely different. Her pulse quickened and Feng pulled on her and the kiss became deep and Nea was kissing back with a rhythm that was almost frantic. She felt her chest heave as she moved with Feng, leaning into the kiss again and again and then she felt Feng’s tongue in her mouth and as she kissed back it was almost like they were a single new being together, sharing their breath, heartbeats perfectly timed, her fingers wound around the other girl’s hair of their own accord, and then they broke apart, catching their breath and looking at each other in surprise and wonder.

Feng was breathing hard, and her expression seemed so impressed when she looked up and met Nea’s eyes that Nea started to laugh. Feng straightened herself and closed the distance again, shoving Nea just hard enough for her back to catch against the tree behind her and half knock the breath out of her. Feng grinned at Nea and placed her palms against the tree on either side of the other girl’s head like she was holding her there, and then she leaned forward and her mouth was on Nea’s again and everything else was gone.

Her hands found the fabric of Feng’s pants and the back of her neck and she pulled her closer, harder, leaning into the kiss, the motion of heaving chests and hips against hips. Nea felt a hand on her chest and another tightly wound in her hair, and as their rhythm intensified she needed more and Nea shoved off the tree she’d been pressed against, half lifting Feng, who was more than willing to oblige, wrapping her legs around Nea’s torso, never once letting her tongue leave Nea’s mouth as they moved blindly, bumping and slamming against trees in the intensity of their motion. Nea pulled her mouth away from Feng’s and started to kiss her neck, following the jawline down to her collarbone, the sudden slow motion in the midst of their intensity somehow ever stronger. She heard the breath catch in Feng’s chest as she turned her head to expose her throat to the exploring lips. As soon as she reached her collarbone, Nea felt warm palms on her cheeks and Feng turned her head back to look up at her.

For a moment they just looked at each other, motion forgotten and stars in their eyes. Then Feng grabbed her flannel by the collar and jerked her up into an intense kiss, the force of the lunge stumbling them into a boulder, and as she kissed back Nea felt one hand cup behind her head and another slide up under her shirt and past the bra, and the sudden touch tugged on her inside and she leaned into it, hands unsure where to go through the intensity that suddenly floored her, finding the cool skin along Feng’s back and pulling herself further into the grinding ripple of hips against each other, no longer able to control her own motion or wanting to break from the rhythm, almost like a fight as it dragged her relentlessly into the other girl, but voluntary and stronger and safe in a way, struggling together towards something impossible that felt so good she thought her chest might rupture from it.

They kept going, hands exploring quicker, tugging harder, motions getting stronger and stronger as they struggled to never stop, until Feng suddenly let go and dropped to her feet again, catching Nea by surprise and off-balance, and using the momentum to knock her back onto the grass, moving to straddle her before she had time to recover her breath or move.

Chests heaving up and down in their frantic efforts, both girls paused for a second, trying to gasp air back into their lungs as Nea stared up at Feng. Feng grinned at her and reached down, wrapped her fingers around the edges of her shirt, and pulled it over hear head, leaving herself in a black bra as she tossed the shirt blindly into the weeds behind her.

Slowly, Nea let her hands run up Feng’s side, feeling her friend’s breath and her heartbeat as her palm met Feng’s chest, and then she slid her hand into the hollow of Feng’s back and let her fingertips unsnap the clasps and her other hand tugged the bra free.

Heart racing, Nea hesitated, just staring at the other girl in wonder. Feng didn’t. She took Nea’s hands and placed them on her breasts, and then leaned forward, one hand cupping Nea’s head and the other slipping down past her pants as she pulled her into a kiss that was long and deep and consuming against the rhythm of roaming tongues and reaching hands and rocking hips and rapid breathing.

Her whole body moved, dragged along with the motion in her hips and arms and the girl on top of her, and she heard moans among the rhythm and wasn’t sure if they were hers or Feng’s or both, but the motion and the sound intensified and she felt energy like adrenaline but stronger all through her, something like she’d never felt in her life, and an intense pleasure that felt like wanting and needing and relief all at once, and the sensation built and flooded her and then suddenly she and Feng as one burned out of existence and back in, and she felt her back slam against the cold concrete floor of the meat packing plant, and her head stung as it smacked into the uncaring floor.

Feng’s head snapped up from where it had been and she sat up on Nea’s chest, frantically looking around.

“Ow…” said Nea quietly from underneath her.

“What the fuck,” she heard Feng whisper angrily.

“No, no,” Nea replied, still out of it on her emotional high. She reached up and put a hand under Feng’s chin and turned her head back to look at her. “It’s cool. We’ve been living in a horror movie for so long, it was only a matter of time before somebody had to be the dumb couple that goes to make out in the woods and gets their asses cut up.”

Feng looked at her, annoyed for a second, and then her expression became a losing battle not to smile. “So what, we’re a public service?”

Nea nodded and sat up, Feng still in her lap. She kissed her on the lips, and then the nose, and gave her a soft smile. “We’re cheating though, because everyone gets their asses cut up here anyway,” whispered Nea, her voice containing the barely choked down urge to laugh, because for some reason all of this was incredibly funny to her, “but nobody else gets to bang.”

Feng snorted and shook her head, then looked down at herself. “Oh, fuck,” she said realizing, “there’s two more of us in here and I don’t have shirt.”

“Or a bra,” Nea added helpfully.

Feng gave her a look.

“Here,” whispered Nea, gently moving Feng off her lap and standing up, offering Feng a hand. Feng took it and Nea pulled her to her feet, tugged off her flannel, and passed it to Feng. “Better than nothing.”

Feng smiled and took it, then pointed to a gen a few feet away from them. “Let’s do this shit,” she whispered happily. As she slid over to the gen, Feng tied the flannel around her torso like a towel, or an impromptu tube-top, instead of putting it on and buttoning it.

“Fashion?” Nea whispered as she knelt by Feng and started on the gen.

Feng looked across the generator at her and gave her a sly smile. “No. I want it to come off as fast as possible once we get out of here,” she whispered back.

Nea choked and cleared her throat, grinning as she worked.

After a few seconds, she heard an almost hesitant sounding _bing-bong_ of a bell from about three feet behind her.

 _Ah, fuck’n hell,_ Nea thought, grabbing Feng and taking off at top speeds. _Maybe I’ll get a chance to impress her by dying heroically._

* * *

 

 

“You’re sure it’s the Wraith?” asked Dwight, creeping after Meg Thomas past boxes in the meat packing plant.

“Sure as I am that I’m gonna beat his ass for dragging me here in the middle of trying to describe the emotion when Binx starts purring because home’s a thing again for the first time in 300 years,” replied Meg. “I heard the bing-bong stick.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dwight, choking, “the what now?”

Meg stopped in front of him and made a swinging motion, “You know, the stick thing he hits the bell with that makes it go ‘bing-bong.’”

“That’s not the sound a bell makes,” Dwight hissed back. “Please don’t say it like that, I think you took years off my life.”

“Dwight,” Meg said, looking him square in the face, “Bells go _bing-bong._ They just do.”

Suddenly the two of them heard the sound of a terror radius come shooting towards them, and they slid behind a cage with a decaying corpse in it, trying to breathe quietly. The sound faded, and then got closer, then faded again.

“So,” Meg whispered after it had been ten seconds and the little pallet-looping or whatever was happening seemed to still be going on, “Not to sound like Claudette, but the Wraith’s been being pretty fucking weird lately.”

“Yeah?” asked Dwight, sounding hopeful.

“I was thinking I might start fucking with him and see what happens,” Meg whispered back, “You know, for posterity.”

Dwight shook his head at her. “Why would you do that?”

She made a sort of _duh_ gesture with her hands. “For posterity,” she said again, much slower. “Also,” she added after a second, “I was thinking—”

And then Feng and Nea came tearing around the corner, the Wraith right behind them, shot past the hidden survivors, and vanished up the stairs in a mad scramble, hand in hand.

Meg blinked at the sight of Feng in an only semi-functional tube-top and mouthed “What the fuck? Was that a tube-top?” to Dwight, who got the “What the fuck,” but not the “tube-top,” and just shook his head in confusion and went back to staring himself.

The Wraith hesitated at the base of the stairs as the two girls vanished, looked around, drooped his shoulders and sighed, then walked up the stairs slowly after them, quickening his pace as he reached the top.

“What the fuck was _that,”_ Dwight whispered, peeking out from behind the cage.

“The fucking Wraith, or the,” Meg gestured to her boobs.

“I don’t even know,” said Dwight, suddenly exhausted, “let’s just get to a gen.”

Meg put a hand on his shoulder. “You do that. I’m gonna go fuck with the Wraith.”

“Please don’t make him mad,” Dwight hissed after her as she vaulted over some boxes and was gone.

 _Jesus Christ,_ thought Dwight, _I need to try to talk to him, but I don’t want to do it after she gets through. I know we’ve been worried Claudette and I haven’t been in trials with him at all, and this is a good thing for us, but damn I don’t want to do this. _He squared his shoulders. _Quit wimping out. Do it for Claudette. You said you would, so come on. Get going._ He heard a loud clang and laughter from somewhere above him. _God, this is the fucking nightmare scenario._

Dwight took a deep breath and slowly started up the stairs, only absently thinking to himself he was doing exactly what the Wraith had done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to Burn Bright and the Aminosman instrumental to Dead Girl Walking a lot while writing this, and Dead Girl Walking especially felt like it conveyed the emotion. Thank you again to everyone who reads. Seriously means the world to me.


	17. Round Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dwight finally has a chance to talk to the Wraith, but it doesn't go as expected.

Nea had hoped to show some grand gesture by taking a bullet for Feng, but she didn’t end up having to. She and Feng pretty easily avoided the Wraith, who eventually lost them altogether. That was fine by her.

In the end, she tugged open an exit gate with Feng at her side, ran for the escape, burned back into existence by the fire at camp and hit the ground running, fingers already intertwined with Feng’s. The two girls made a b-line for the forest, not even stopping to greet their surprised friends or register their reactions. As Nea and Feng shot past Jake, she saw him raise a hand and she smacked a flying high-five behind her back as they went by.

It took another three minutes for Meg to come stumbling back to the campfire, laughing about dodging the Wraith, and then looking a little concerned by the immediate bombardment of questions about Feng and Nea she had no idea how to answer. After another four minutes passed, Jake asked her about Dwight, who should have been back—one way or another. She didn’t know. Claudette stopped working on her Med Kit and moved to sit by the fire and wait. Jake kept working on his toolbox, but he shot looks at the campfire with increasing frequency as the minutes dragged from seven to twelve. The tension around the fireplace grew, and eventually, one by one, everyone stopped what they were doing and just sort of sat by the fire, waiting in silence.  No more questions about the missing girls, no third act of _Hocus Pocus_ finished by Meg, no more lessons from David. Fourteen minutes.

Something was very wrong.

 

* * *

 

Dwight had attempted, six times during the trial, to get close to the Wraith. He’d failed every one of them. Meg had been causing absolute pandemonium upstairs, and Feng and Nea weren’t any better.

Claudette was right though, the Wrath was…off. He was chasing hard, but Dwight never saw him go to hit someone. Didn’t even swing. He tried to grab them from time to time, but not attack. A trial where the killer didn’t even draw blood was virtually unheard of.

Dwight tried getting close to him when the Wraith lost Meg in a chase, but no sooner did he slip out from behind a box and say “Hey,” and get that slow, horrifyingly ominous head turn, when Meg was back and shining a flashlight in the killer’s face and shooting away at impossible speeds.

Feng and Nea were the only two who got any work done on generators, but they went fast as a two-person team, and it didn’t take long with such little interference from the Wraith for all five generators to power the escapes.

It was the easiest trial Dwight had ever seen. And that kind of freaked him out. The longer it went on, the tenser he felt. It was like the air got thicker.

On the other hand, Nea and Feng had left the second a door was open, and Dwight realized that if he was going to have a chance of talking to the Wraith, this was pretty ideal. After all, if things went badly, he could just run for the escape instead of die. Hopefully.

He’d been following this line of positive thinking, crouched in an exit, when Meg had gone down. It had been quick—a lucky shot maybe. Like Claudette, Dwight could sense people—to a weaker extent. They’d all developed abilities since coming here, and that was one of his. He didn’t have the range Claudette did, but Meg and the Wraith were close, only a few yards off.

 _Shit. It couldn’t have been easy,_ thought Dwight, slipping out of the exit and towards where Meg had gone down. He saw the Wraith pick her up and carry her, kicking and fighting, towards a hook. _God damn it, Meg._

He heard her scream in pain as the thick chunk of metal cut through her shoulder and out her chest, puncturing a lung. He felt the sensation in his own chest—he knew it far too well. Dwight wondered if it was the same for all of them, or if he was the only one who had trouble breathing as his lungs filled up with blood.

_Okay, I promised Claudette, but get Meg first._

The Wraith looked up at her and then turned and moved quickly towards the exit he’d just come from, melting into invisibility as he went. Dwight counted in his head to give the Wraith a few seconds of distance, then bolted to the hook and lifted Meg free.

“Little bitch,” he heard Meg whisper as he got her down, “hitting me blinded, lucky shot.”

“Go,” hissed Dwight, shoving her in the opposite direction the Wraith had taken. She did, and Dwight saw the invisible form of the Wraith slide into place in front of them almost too late. He moved between the huge man and his injured friend as she ran, blocking his path. The Wraith uncloaked then, the wailing bell making a sound that Dwight would unfortunately probably hear as _bing-bong_ from now on thanks to Meg. Dwight expected to be hit, and then to make the quick run back towards the exit only a few yards off with a cut in his side. Good odds at that. Instead, the Wraith kicked him.

He’d never been kicked by a killer before. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he’d ever been kicked by anyone before. It hurt. A strong, tall man’s foot rammed into your chest at high speeds, for the record, was painful.

He went flying back and slammed into a little table nearby, toppling it and knocking the breath out of him. Before he could get back up, the Wraith was above him, foot planted firmly on his chest.

Dwight had never seen the Wraith mori someone, and he had the sudden overwhelming impression he was about to.

“Wait!” said Dwight desperately, trying to shift the foot with both his hands, “I just want to talk to you!”

The Wraith looked down at him and cocked its head.

It looked up then, like it was listening to something above it. Then it looked back down at him and stomped, hard, knocking the breath out of him and leaving his chest aching as he gasped for air.

It bent down then and picked him up, slinging him over its shoulder. He didn’t have the strength to struggle, trying as hard as he could just to breathe, and the Wraith moved downstairs quickly.

 _Oh god, he’s taking me to the basement,_ Dwight realized as they rounded a corner. His brain decided to reassess its position how much it needed oxygen to fight back, and he started to struggle wildly.

As soon as he did, the Wraith picked him up off its shoulders with both hands and slammed him into a wall.

Dwight’s head rammed back against the wall, stunning him. It took him a second to be able to see clearly again, and he felt blood dripping down the back of his head. The Wraith hadn’t even bothered to sling him over a shoulder this time. It was just dragging him along quickly by the collar.

They hit the basement steps and he tried again to struggle, fighting to pull the Wraith’s hands off his shirt. The Wraith threw him the few steps down to the landing, knocking his head hard against the wood paneling, and pinning him with one of its feet again.

 _This is bad,_ Dwight’s mind offered. _I’m definitely going to die and it’s going to be way worse than normal death. Worse death, that’s what this is._

It stomped on his chest again, and he started to cough, lungs desperately trying to fill up with oxygen.

“Wait,” Dwight tried to get out without any air. The Wraith stared down at him, then it rammed its foot into his chest a second time, harder, and Dwight keeled forward, coughing on the ground.

He felt it grab him and throw him down the last few steps to the basement floor. He hit the ground still coughing and skidded a few feet, slamming into the base of one of the lockers. It advanced fast and grabbed him by his collar, lifting him into the air while he kicked and fought.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck, no._ He saw the array of hooks out of the corner of his eye. The basement hooks were different. It always hurt to be stabbed through one of these things, but the ones in the basement burned.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Dwight managed, “Don’t!”

With one swift motion, the Wraith threw him onto one of the hooks, and as the Wraith let go, he tried to brace for the pain that hadn’t kicked in yet and he felt himself suddenly dangling. There was no pain though. It took Dwight a second to realize that the hook was caught through the back of his shirt, hanging him like a clothing wrack, and not through his shoulder.

 _What the fuck?_ his panicked brain asked him desperately, begging for help on damage control. _Did he do this on accident?_

 _How should I know?_ he thought back, equally freaked out, _but this is bad._

Beneath him, the Wraith turned its head like it was listening as it looked up at him, then it looked furtively over its shoulders and reached into its cloak.

 _Oh God,_ thought Dwight with immeasurable dread. _Oh fuck, what the hell is happening?_

Slowly, the Wraith drew its hand from the cloak and held it out to him, opening its fingers when the hand was close to reveal a little roll of gauze.

 _Oh thank God_.

“Yes!” Dwight almost shouted, as the terror gave way to immense relief. “Yes! That’s Claudette’s—she gave it to you—you do remember!”

The Wraith nervously looked over its shoulders again and put a finger to its lips. Dwight took the hint.

“Sorry,” he whispered, “I’m just really excited—I thought I was about to die painfully.”

The Wraith looked at him for a second, then the gauze, and shook its head.

“What?” asked Dwight quietly.

It glanced over its shoulder again, then made the hand signal for ‘keep going.’

 _What is it doing?_ wondered Dwight. “Uh…” he started, trying to think, “…I’m wrong?”

It shrugged at him, still giving the ceiling furtive glances.

 _This is weird,_ thought Dwight, _What are you looking for? What would overhear us? Why are you acting like this, Wraith? But this is good, right? I mean, it’s trying to talk to me…sort of, and I’m not dead. Okay, uh, what now?_

He hadn’t said anything in response yet, so the Wraith shrugged at him again and shook its head.

“You don’t know?” Dwight prompted, guess at what it meant. _Can it not talk? Or, should I stop talking?_

The Wraith nervously tapped its foot on the floor. It opened its mouth like it might speak, and then shut it. Instead it tapped its temple with a finger and shook its head at him.

 _I’ve always been so mediocre at charades,_ thought Dwight unhappily. _Damnit. Why did I not build basic skills in life. Or…pre-trial hell whateverthe…ah fuck it._ “You…” he thought for a second. “You don’t remember?” he continued, hushed.

The Wraith nodded then. It was hard to read an expression behind the mask of mud and paint on its face. Dwight had never really been this close to the Wraith before—not in this way, where he didn’t have to be running, or fighting, or something. He’d not taken a long, good look before. He always had vaguely seemed tree-ish to Dwight—like a living elm or something—a bad dryad. But he was more human looking up close. His arms were human skin anyway, similar shade to Claudette’s. There was the same paint-mud covering most of him as made a mask on his face, but Dwight could definitely see skin too. He wondered if the mask was a part of him, or something that could be taken off.  The eyes weren’t human though. They glowed, a vaguely blueish white, with nothing he could see behind them.

 _Still though—it nodded. Right? Right. Okay, okay, good—good. That’s something. But what do I say now?_ thought Dwight, trying to keep up. _What does it want me to do? It doesn’t remember, so why? Is that normal for a killer?_ “She said she gave it to you because you hurt yourself,” Dwight continued after a second of thought, hoping that answer would help.

The Wraith gave him a look he had a hard time placing but was pretty sure fell in the realm of disbelief, confusion, or skepticism. So probably not a great sign. _Okay, give it more detail, but don’t piss it off. This is…I think…going pretty well. Don’t fuck it up._

“You attacked everyone,” said Dwight carefully, choosing his words as he went, “You had been acting weird before that in a couple trials, not chasing us and stuff, and then you suddenly did again, and almost killed a few of us, and then it was just you and Claudette—she’s the one who gave you that—kind of small, glasses like me, often wears an apron?”

The Wraith nodded in a way that indicated it knew exactly who he meant.

“Right,” continued Dwight, “So it was just her, and you had her, and she thought you were going to kill her but,” he tried to remember exactly what Claudette had said, “You seemed like something was wrong, and you hit yourself in the head on purpose until it cut your head open, and then you let her go. She gave you gauze to take care of the forehead cut.”

The Wraith stood there, like it didn’t know what to do. He could tell it had been listening carefully to what he said. It slowly put its fingers up to its forehead like it was feeling for a wound. Dwight could tell there wasn’t one.

“You seem okay now,” he hurried to add, “I don’t know—maybe you heal fast like we do? You…You uh, don’t remember any of that?” _I probably sound super full of shit. Is there anything more provable? Come on, think._

The Wraith lowered its hand and looked at him again, head tilted, then down at the gauze it still held. He saw it run its fingers over the worn fabric slowly.

 _I have nothing,_ Dwight thought hopelessly, _I don’t know what to say if it can’t remember anything. That’s not fair. If that’s the case, then what can I say to it that would even matter?_

“I-I’m sorry,” he said quietly after a second, feeling a need to say something, “That’s really all I know. We’ve been trying to talk to you ever since, her and me, but this is the first time one of us has been in the same trial since…” _since you killed her,_ thought Dwight, but he didn’t say it. “We never thought you all were like people before,” Dwight continued after a second, hoping maybe it would give him a sign they were right—that it was like a person.

The Wraith quickly turned its head back to look up at him then. Its glowing white-blue eyes unblinking and fixed.

“I’m Dwight,” he offered, awkwardly extending a hand like he was going for a handshake. _Guess I’m doing this. I probably look ridiculous._

The Wraith looked at the hand, and then there was a sound above them, and the Wraith jumped. There was a sudden heaviness to the air, and all about him, Dwight saw the spider-like fingers he’d seen appear around him so many times on a hook start to burn into existence.

The Wraith looked back at him and he thought that maybe he could see a real expression behind the mask this time: dread. It looked from the ceiling, to the claws, back to him, and then moved the one small step it needed to reach him and picked him up.

 _Oh no,_ thought Dwight as he realized what was about to happen. “Wait, wait! Please don’t!”

The Wraith ran him through the hook. He felt the boiling hot metal cut through his lung and skin and he screamed in pain as his bodyweight tore against it and made everything worse as he hung there.

It met his eyes for a second, and he thought he saw guilt, and then it moved away from his line of sight and all he could see were the sharp spider-like fingers surrounding him.

The Entity’s claws solidified about him and closed fast, with a snap like a bear trap, and Dwight caught the one in front of him and struggled, fighting to keep it back.

“Please,” he called, trying to turn his head towards where the Wraith had gone, “I know you don’t want to do this.” For some reason the panic of dying this way was stronger than it had been in a long time—maybe since the first time. _I know I was getting somewhere. Come on, prove me right. Shit, please prove me right._ “Please help me!”

He heard something then, a voice, but a language he didn’t know. The talon he was struggling against lost a little of its tension and the fight was easier for a second. Above him, he saw dark clouds descending and the air thickened with black smoke that swirled in a slow, dedicated vortex in the center of the room.

Sound—the voice from before continued, rapidfire.

The Wraith was in front of him again then, and with one hand it gripped him by the collar and tore him off the hook, dropping him to the ground with a thud.

Dwight’s head hit the hook post as he dropped, and he felt dazed for a second, hand to his wound trying to staunch the blood flow from the chunk of flesh he’d lost when it tore open his chest.

 _He’s talking,_ Dwight realized, fuzzy vision watching the Wraith gesture up at the smoke above it. _I don’t know what language, but he’s talking._

He hadn’t ever heard a Killer speak before. He hadn’t known they could.

There was a hiss that echoed and changed, a sound between wind and whispers and fire, and Dwight realized with a cocktail of morbid, frozen fascination and fear that something was talking back—the Entity was talking back.

 _Oh fuck, this is really bad, isn’t it,_ he thought in a quiet panic, trying to put comprehensive thoughts together. He struggled to make it to his feet, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t the injury in his chest stopping him, or the daze from where his head had hit the post. It was the immense, overpowering pressure from the cloud above him. Just being in that thing’s presence was making him week. His legs just _wouldn’t_ stand. There was no fight or flight reflex to kick in in the Entity’s aura. There was only one impulse, and it was to hide. _Move,_ he told himself, trying as hard as he could to push through the ice in his veins.

In front of him, the Wraith continued to speak. There was emotion in the voice, he was sure of it. Something intense but not hostile. Desperation maybe.  It had been talking fast this whole time, but it stopped then, started and faltered, and he could tell by its tone it was asking a question.

The cloud above the two of them was thickening. It was getting hard to breathe. The Wraith looked at him, and then back at the cloud, and said something. There was a hiss as it was answered by the cloud, and the Wraith just stood there, like it had been hit by a train. Unmoving—staring at nothing. Then, slowly, it looked at him, and then the stairs, then back to him. Head still, only its eyes moving.

 _Run,_ he realized. _Run for the stairs._ He tried, fighting to his feet and taking two shaky steps towards the way out, looking back at the Wraith and the cloud above. The Wraith moved then, putting its body between him and the rest of the basement and the thing in the inky black smoke, its back to him, and Dwight had the distinct impression that if he didn’t run now, he wasn’t going to have another chance.

He started to run, but something about the rigid stance, the tension in the Wraith’s posture. Dwight stopped and looked back. _You’re in trouble, aren’t you? You saved me, and now you’re going to pay for it._ Really, he had no idea what this was. What the rules were for killers, or even what the killers themselves were, but he knew enough to know that the Wraith was letting him go, and it wasn’t supposed to. He wasn’t the only one in danger.

“What about you?” he asked, hesitating at the landing.

The Wraith turned its head to look at him and it looked surprised. Maybe even sad.

Suddenly, the basement walls around Dwight exploded into flame.

“Holy shit!” he cried out on impulse, trying to move away from immense heat suddenly coming from all directions.

Above him, he heard a crack like thunder, and he looked up in time to see burning chunks of ceiling coming down. The Wraith moved like it was trying to reach towards him, then he was buried.

He didn’t die. It wasn’t fast, like he’d hoped and prayed in the split second he’d seen the roof coming at him. Nothing so merciful. The beams pinned him to the stairs, breaking bones with the force of their fall and searing his flesh. He screamed, trying to shift the debris off him as he felt his skin melt and smelled himself burning. Dwight had died a lot of ways, and all of them had been gruesome, but nothing had hurt as much as burning alive did. The smoke around him filled his lungs and choked him, and he coughed and struggled to breathe, which only made the burning and tearing of his muscles more awful as he involuntarily increased pressure and fought to get free. He smelled his hair burn and all he could hear was the crackle of fire and his own screams. The burns went deep, cooking organs that tried desperately to save him, cauterizing wounds as they were caused so he couldn’t bleed out, and making it impossible to fill his lungs with the oxygen they needed, but not enough to let him die of asphyxiation. He couldn’t pass out. Even with so much pain, he was horribly awake. He saw himself go blind as the heat snapped his glasses and cooked his eyes, destroying his retinas, searing away his sight with impossible agony. His stomach lining burned through and he felt hot embers fall inside him, and then there was a sound like movement and something sharp cut deep into his forehead and it was over.

He had neve been so relieved to die.

 

* * *

 

 

When Dwight woke up, he was laying on his back outside in the grass, by the campfire, and there were voices all around him.

“Fuck, he’s awake,” relief flooded a voice he knew was Jake’s.

 _I made it,_ thought Dwight weakly, _or something._

“Oh thank God.”

Claudette. There was emotion in her voice like she might cry.

He opened his eyes then, afraid to at first because he was terrified they wouldn’t work anymore—the memory of losing them still fresh. They did though, and he was suddenly blinking against the harsh light. _Thank god, I can still see._

Almost everyone he knew was crowded around, looking down at him. Claudette grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him up into a hug.

“You’re okay! You were gone for so long after the trial ended,” she said, burying her face in his shoulder, “we were worried something awful had happened.”

Motor control came back, and Dwight reached out and wrapped his arms around Claudette, returning the hug.

“You were out for another minute after appearing here too,” said Jake, crouched beside Dwight and still sounding a little worried. “That’s never happened before. What went on in the trial?”

Dwight let go of Claudette and looked at the others around him. “I don’t know where to start,” he answered.

“I’m sorry, I thought we were both out. You weren’t even injured, and we were so close to the doors,” said Meg, looking miserable.

He shook his head. “Yeah, no—you didn’t do anything. It’s okay.” He held out and arm and she move over and hugged him.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” asked Quentin. He had a med kit open. Dwight nodded, wondering what they’d been planning to do to wake him up if he hadn’t on his own.

“So, what happened?” asked Jake again from his position crouched beside Dwight.

Dwight started to answer, and then he noticed Laurie, expectantly watching with the others. _Whatever happened before that made the Wraith forget,_ Dwight thought to himself, _I think it just happened again. Or maybe something worse. And the last thing some of them need is false hope, or to feel divided right now._ He was torn for a second, trying to decide between telling them what was definitely important news, and protecting them by hanging onto it himself for a little longer. It seemed stupid not to—the kind of thing you got mad at characters for doing in a tv show that had been running too long. But then he remembered the way Laurie had almost sounded worried about seeing the Shape again after he tried to end it with her, about what would happen to him. Come to think of it, they hadn’t seen the Shape since. There was a sudden worry in the pit of his stomach that they might not see the Wraith again this time either. That would be his fault. What had happened back there?  _Okay, you’re overthinking this—or, maybe you haven’t thought it through enough._ _None of this hiding stuff all alone bullshit, that’s stupid, but ask Claudette. Maybe both of you wait a match and see if the Wraith is there, and if he’s different. At least think this through before you tell it all. Just, buy a little time. It’ll be okay, I just need time to think._

“Dwight?” prompted Jake, the relieved expression that had been there shifting back into something a little worried.

He thought for a second, then Dwight looked back over at Jake and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally drafted both characters' versions of events, but ended up thinking it was more interesting to just hear it from Dwight. Thank all of you again for reading. It means a lot. : )


	18. Bog Lilly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claudette makes plans and goes over new information.

It’s been…it’s been a lot. Reader, friend, fellow survivor. Whoever you are out there in the mist, hang on tight to something! I have got some really important things to share this time—not like recipes or advice, I mean real, actual, valuable information.

A few—well, I guess at this point it’s more like a lot of trails back—the Wraith stopped mid-trial and didn’t attack me. He let Dwight and me both go. If you’re reading these in order like I’m writing them, then you know that, but it seems like I always only find scattered pages when I find the writings of other people at all.

To make a long story shorter, he started acting strange and leaving us be, until one trial he went wild and almost killed everyone. The really weird thing was that after he went all frenzied on us he started hitting his head on purpose—like he was trying to snap out of something almost. I really don’t know how else to describe it. But after he did that, he calmed down after that and let me go.  Before leaving, I gave him a bandage—because he'd hurt his head banging it on a wall. Him letting me go, and me giving him the bandage, it was almost friendly. Only then, the very next trial, it was like he didn’t even know who I was, and he killed all of us. Not hooked—killed. Killed-killed, mori’d. Ever since then, Dwight and I have been trying to talk to him, to figure out why this happened. I know it sounds dangerous, and maybe foolish—a lot of my friends thought so too, but how could I not? And then, earlier today, a similar thing happened to Dwight. It’s huge.

Wraith has been acting strange again the past few trials, according to the people who were in them (it’s never been me, unfortunately), and then this time, right at the end of the trial he grabbed Dwight and sort of trapped him in the basement, but he didn’t hurt him. We’ve talked it over, Dwight and I, and we think that was so the others would leave and not try to get Dwight back out. We’re usually aware by sound or aura when other people get hurt. But if he wasn’t hurt, nobody would know he was in trouble. It makes sense, doesn’t it? It worked that way anyway. Okay, but back to the important stuff.

Sorry, I know I’m a little scattered. I’m still shaky. In a good way—I’m really happy! I can’t even put it into words right. I haven’t been this happy in…lord, I don’t even know! Maybe since I got Jake to try being part of the group with Dwight and Meg and me. Anyway—okay, so the first trial I had with the Wraith after he let me go, I tried to make him stop attacking us, and I mentioned the gauze I’d given him, but he didn't stop—it was like he didn’t even hear me. He did though, because that’s why he grabbed Dwight—he still had the gauze and he wanted to know why. He remembered what I’d said! Apparently he knows which one of us I am, and he remembered that conversation, but not where he got the gauze—I, I guess I should stop to say that Dwight got this mostly nonverbally. He didn’t exactly “ask” where he got the gauze, or tell all of that to Dwight, but I’ll take all the nods and head shakes I can get—it’s something new, and promising, and hopeful!

I really think that the Wraith isn’t a bad person. I think he’s good, and I think we can make friends with him. I’m going to try! I know I can figure out a way.

All of this stuff with Wraith and Dwight was only a few hours ago, but we’ve talked about it a lot. We haven’t told any of the others yet, because we’re worried about them. Dwight thinks Wraith might be about to go back to acting normal again—normal as in killing everyone mercilessly—and a lot of them have been through some really rough strings of trials recently. I think we should tell them, for sure, and so does Dwight, but just, maybe after we try talking to the Wraith on our own a few times. I don’t want people to get hurt and die more than we all already do, and I don’t want them to give up on the Wraith because of attempts going badly either. It just seems like there’s so much at stake for everybody. I’m trying to make good decisions, but I feel like I’m out of my depth. I’m really, really glad Dwight’s helping me. I shouldn’t be, because I know that puts him in danger—I mean, he just died horribly because of all of this…That’s my fault in a way, I guess. I should try to think of something nice to do for him to try and make it up. I mean, I can’t make something like that up to him so more like to thank him, I guess. He’s a good leader and a better friend. I’m really lucky.

And I’m getting sidetracked. I’m sorry, you don’t care—I promised information.

We aren’t sure why the Wraith would have forgotten what happened in our trial. Dwight thought for a minute maybe the killers forget naturally, but then, we remembered that it’s been a long time since the trial where I told him about the gauze, and he still remembered that, and there’s far older stuff we know some of the others still recall, so that can’t be the answer. We know so little about how the killers work, or why they do what they do. They never talk to us, or to each other, as far as we know. Well, almost, I guess. The one Quentin knows, the Nightmare, he’s always been different from the other killers. I really forget about him when I’m not a trial with him—or I try to. He does talk, if you can call it that. It’s so strange, the others don’t say a word, but he’s a different kind of thing. You can’t hear him at all unless you fall asleep, but once you do, he’s everywhere. I don’t really think of it like talking in the way a person does, and I always remember it sort of blurry when I wake up, but I know he talks. He mocks you and says horrible things, things I wish I could completely forget. But he's some horrible exception. Aside from that, the killers are all silent things stalking the night. They don't talk. They just don't. The closest we’ve ever heard to one of them talking is the Huntress singing.

What’s more, they do seem to remember things—the Trapper really hates Feng because for awhile she was just running circles around a strategy he’d worked out that had had the rest of us duly thrashed. And that has to have been months ago.  Laurie says the Shape remembers her, for sure, and I can tell from the way he acts she’s got to be right. Which means the Wraith forgetting has to be unusual. I mean, I guess it could be something just about him—no long memory, but I don’t think so. That feels like such a stretch.

This is supposed to be informational, but I think at this point I sound like I’m almost writing a conspiracy wall instead—trying to put together puzzle pieces with photographs and newspaper clippings and red string. I want so badly to be helpful, to figure this out, to go home. I just want to find some way to save everyone. I need to think it through though. There’s just so much right now—so much that is new that we have to talk about and think over.

And then, there’s still so much we don’t have any idea of.

We don’t know a lot about the thing that is I guess the “big bad,” or the boss, or whatever I should call it. The Entity. The thing that keeps us trapped. We see it.  We all remember being grabbed by it, and lord knows it’s killed each of us enough times. But we have no idea what it actually _is._ What’s more, we don’t really know what the relationship is between it and the Killers. We know they sacrifice us to it, and I think we’ve all seen it sort of…I don’t know how to describe it…cue them in, maybe? Sometimes there’s a sound like whispers or the wind near us, and it lets the Killers find us. 

We know the Killers burn offerings too—like we do.  I don’t think any of us think of it as anything like offering in the traditional sense—worship, or whatever. But if you throw things into the campfire when you can tell you’re about to be dragged into a trial, it changes things. I don’t really remember how we all figured that out, but each of us did, and on our own. It was like knowledge we were born with, or given the second we arrived here. However we first discovered it, we’ve learned better what causes what through trial and error. We’ve picked up a lot of things in the fog. So have the killers. Whatever skills we’ve developed, they’ve developed some of their own. Not just the Wraith being able to turn invisible, or the Hag teleporting around like an evil X-man or something—it’s other things too. Smaller things. They’re stronger and faster than should be possible. We tried to fight, all of us, when we first got here. I know a lot of us tried for a long time. We’d grab blunt objects and swing, try and make traps. It didn't work. It doesn’t work. Anything but the set ground rules are useless in a trial. I tried once to break a picture frame over the Nurse’s head when she went to attack Jake, and it did break, but I swear it did before even touching her—it just flew apart all over me on its own and did nothing to her except let her know I was there.  Quentin says in a lot of ways this is like how being in the Nightmare’s dream world was back in reality. You couldn’t hurt him there—his world, his rules.  That’s a scary thought for us, if it’s the same. How are we ever supposed to win?

The other thing is, while we’ve all known the whole time that this is the Entity’s world, we never really thought a lot about what that means for the hunters. It seems so voluntary—I think most of them enjoy it; I know some of them do. With Laurie and Quentin knowing two of them and that they’d been serial killers before coming here, I just assumed that’s what all of them were. That this was hell for us, and some sick heaven for them. I think that's part of why we never tried to talk to them.

Maybe that’s wrong, though. Maybe we’ve been wrong about a lot of things.

Whatever else is true, the Wraith is different from the others. Aah, I’m sorry, I’m all jumbled again, and I’m skipping important things.

When the Wraith grabbed Dwight to ask him questions, it took him to the basement, which you’ll know by now is the worst place in this whole hell world. He put Dwight on a hook through his shirt, instead of actually stabbing him like Killers do to sacrifice us, and tried to get him to explain the gauze. Even though he wasn't really hooked, the Entity still showed up to take its sacrifice like it usually would, and the Wraith hooked Dwight for real to appease it, or to cover, or something. Dwight thinks he was trying to act like he hadn’t been talking to Dwight—said that the Wraith was cautious the whole time, like he knew he was doing something he shouldn’t. Dwight also said it was like he didn’t want to hurt him though—like he felt bad about it, and then when Dwight asked him for help, the Wraith changed his mind. He actually let him go.

That still amazes me. Letting someone slip through an exit is one thing, but the Wraith took him off the hook. Killers don’t take survivors off of hooks. It doesn’t happen. But he did! And after, and this is the other big thing, Dwight heard him talk—the Wraith, like, for real talking to and with the Entity, and it was talking back. They had some kind of a conversation. Dwight didn’t know the language, and I know this may sound unimportant if you’re new to the fog because language isn’t that much in some ways but believe me, it is. After there’s been nothing but silent monsters hunting you for months on end, just talking is such a human thing. It means we have a good shot at communicating with them—we can try! And what’s more, we know the Entity communicates directly with the Killers now, and it seems like they take specific orders from it, but also that they _can_ disobey, because they were definitely talking about what to do with Dwight, and the Wraith did what he wasn’t supposed to.

The room caught on fire and collapsed on top of Dwight after that, which we had no idea the terrain could do—especially a part as sturdy looking as the basement, and I feel absolutely horrible...I wish I could have...Anyway, the roof caved in and he died, so he didn’t see what happened after the Wraith tried to let him go, but he says that when he was burning to death he thinks the Wraith mercy killed him. Dwight said he’s pretty sure Wraith was in trouble for letting him go, so whatever happened next, it probably wasn’t good. I guess that makes sense. I wonder if he got in trouble for letting me go too?

We haven’t been in another trial with Wraith yet—like I said, it’s only been a few hours at this writing, so that might not be a bad sign. It isn’t yet, anyway. There’s not much else to tell, but still, this is a wealth of information. We know that at least some of the killers—one of them anyway—is human like us. At least mostly; at least enough to feel pity and to be kind. That’s something—oh who am I kidding, that’s more than something, that’s huge! I keep trying to downplay how I’m feeling so I can get through this professionally, or coherently, or something, but I’m so happy I want to go give people hugs and dance and—I don’t know—shout maybe! It’s so much to hope for! And what about the others? If this is true of the Wraith, could we get through to the Huntress, or the Hillbilly?

I feel like I’m doing a real poor job of organizing this—I’m just so excited right now! I’ve been so worried that maybe somehow I’d remembered things wrong, or that I just was mistaken, or reading things into my memories, but this is proof—it’s proof that we can talk to at least one of the killers. This could change everything for us! If we can work with the Killers, what can the Entity do to stop us?

Okay. Professional face back on. I’m getting way too ahead of myself. Gotta stick with what we know. We know the killers work for the Entity, on its orders. We know that they _can_ do things they are not supposed to. I can’t say we know for sure, but we are pretty certain that if they do, they get punished some way. Maybe they lose memories? We talked about that as a possibility. But again, that’s speculation—not unfounded, but…Okay, okay. Things we _know._ We know that the Wraith’s memory is unreliable, but that he is capable of feeling bad for us, and willing to help us under some circumstances—that he has been repeatedly. We think it is very likely that the Entity is responsible for him forgetting things, maybe for him acting especially aggressive sometimes too. Dwight and I don’t know if it can control them—surely not outright though, or it would just do that all the time and have nothing to worry about—but maybe to some extent. We don’t know where the killers come from, but it seems like they used to be people, good or bad, from our world too. Like us. I’ve talked a little to Laurie—I was careful about what I said because she’s been through a lot and I don’t want to make her sad or worry her, but she’s stronger than we give her credit for, and she told me she thought that the Shape was sick of how things are here, sort of like we are. Not sick of dying of course, but of the repetition, maybe—or just of not getting what he really wants. So, we know the killers don’t do everything voluntarily—or at least, we’re pretty close to sure. We also know they can’t all be from the same times. We haven’t talked about this as much as we probably should have, but Laurie’s from the late 70s, and so is the Shape. Lord only knows how long I’ve been here. Dwight and I showed up about the same time—2016, but Feng says she left in 2017, which means it’s been at least a year. Probably more. I haven’t asked everyone. I’m sort of afraid to.  Anyway, staying positive and not thinking about that, based on the technology in the Meat Packing Plant, the Pig has to be from some time in the 2000s, or the very late 1990s at the earliest. From the cars in Autohaven, Wraith must be from earlier. Laurie thinks a similar time to her own. We don’t know how far back things go, or how far forward, but at least we know that time works differently here. Not just our perception of it, but aging.

I’ve spent time thinking about that ever since Laurie brought it up. She was 17 in 1978, which means she’s been here at least something like forty years. She’s definitely not 55, but she is older than 17—I’m pretty near sure of that, just by looking at her. I would have thought she was older than me—I did think she was, that she was something in her upper 20s. I also think I’ve aged just a little myself. And Quentin—since I first met him, he seems older. Not like a whole bunch, but a little. I sort of think everyone does. Maybe we age here based on something other than time, but we still age. I haven’t got any real proof, but my best guess is if Quentin’s right and it’s sort of like a dream world, where a lot changes based on our perceptions, then maybe it’s how much we mentally believe we’re aging. Maybe. Or maybe time is just different? I’m sorry, I know I keep offering ideas, but at least I’m giving you the reasons behind them. Maybe if you have more information than I do, you can put what I know with what you know and get some facts.

Back to more provable things, we know that the Killers _can_ talk, even if they don’t act like it. Dwight said Wraith spoke a language he couldn’t place, but he does seem to understand English—at least some of it. He definitely got at least most of what Dwight was saying. The Entity can speak too—at least in a way the Killers understand. Oh, shoot…My shoe is starting to Marty McFly on me, as Meg calls it. I guess I’m going to be in a trial. I suppose that that’s it for now—hey, with a lot of luck, maybe it’ll be the Wraith! I’ll burn some salt, and finish this later. Wish me luck.

 

* * *

  

As her feet began to vanish, Claudette shut her journal and tucked it back where it lived, inside a small hollow in the log near the makeshift garden she’d started. After enough trips into the woods, it had seemed practical to transplant some of the growing things here, closer to what was home now, and she’d enjoyed it too. She’d found a lot of faded pamphlets and newspapers in the Auto Heaven gas station and sewn them together as pages before attaching them to a makeshift cover and spine made from a chunk of leather and some wood.

She looked around to see who else’s number was up. From across the campfire, she saw Kate stand up and glance down at a vanishing arm before checking to see who else around the campfire was being pulled. She met Claudette’s eyes and grinned at her and held up her vanishing hand in a _Hey look! Me too!_ gesture. It was weird to associate positive feelings towards being pulled to a trial, but Claudette appreciated it. It made her feel a little less scared herself. She smiled back and waved—they were too far to actually say anything without shouting, since Claudette’s garden was a bit away from the campfire.

Quentin stood up too, sighing at vanishing fingertips on both hands. Kate said something to him and he smiled and gave her a little solute and just had time to nod in Claudette’s direction before they and whoever their fourth was vanished.

 

When she materialized in the Red Forest, Claudette was only a few feet away from Kate. A lucky start. Both of them were by a little patch of trees near a hill.

Kate smiled at her and winked, and the two girls crouched in unison on instinct. Claudette gave a little _Where to?_ gesture with her hands, and Kate pointed to the little hill and the generator on top of it. Claudette nodded, and they crept towards the hill together. Going for a generator on a hill was gutsy, because it put you in plain sight, but Kate was right. Best time to do one of these was at the beginning before the pressure was on, or when you know the killer was off chasing someone else, because you sure as heck didn’t want to have to depend on it later on when there were only a handful of gens left, and with two of them together they should be able to get it quick.

They reached the base of the hill and as they started up it, there was the unnerving sound of a chainsaw in the distance and Claudette shuddered. She was afraid of a lot of things, but chainsaws were up there. Being stabbed hurt, period, but someone ripping through your back with a motorized chain was a kind of awful that made her wince at the very thought of it, even after all this time.

_Hillbilly, or Cannibal?_ she wondered, _At least he’s far away._ She hoped it was the Hillbilly—she liked him a lot more than the Cannibal, for reasons which had a decent amount to do with how he hunted, and another large chunk due to the fact that the other chainsaw wielder was called “the Cannibal” for a reason.

They reached the top of the hill and Claudette pulled open the chest as Kate started on the generator. To her surprise, it was empty. She crouched there, blinking at it for a second in genuine disbelief, and Kate noticed her expression and joined her and looked in too, then gave her a _What on earth?_ look. Claudette had opened a lot of chests in her day, and never had one just been empty.

Something faded and white-ish caught Claudette’s attention then, just barely visible as yellowed paper, rather than the true yellow-brown of the box itself. She reached into the chest and pulled the papers out and looked at them. A series of journal entries, each signed by the vaguely familiar name “Benedict Baker.”

Kate blinked at the pages and leaned closer to squint, then her expression changed to an _Ohhhhh._ Claudette gave her a questioning look, and Kate pointed to the name “Benedict” and mouthed, “I know him.”

“You what?” Claudette mouthed back, because she’d found a handful of papers by him over her time here, and always assumed he’d been long dead.

Kate gave her an _in a minute_ gesture and pointed at the generator. Claudette nodded, checked the box one last time to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, shoved the pages in her jacket pocket, and then they both slipped over to the gen and started working.

After glancing around to make sure there was no sign or sound of the chainsaw wielder yet, Claudette turned to Kate across the gen and whispered “You know him?” so quietly it was barely a sound.

Kate nodded. “Met him…” she held up ten fingers, then two, for twelve times. “Before you all,” she added almost imperceptibly.

“I never have,” whispered back Claudette, almost to herself rather than Kate. “What’s he like?”

Kate tilted her head, thinking. “Nice,” she whispered finally, “dramatic, but real nice. Old-fashioned. I got him to sing with me.”

Claudette had a lot more questions to ask, but this wasn’t the time—just like it wasn’t the time to actually _read_ the pages, so she just turned her full attention to the gen and focused. Across from her, Kate looked distracted. The two girls worked in silence for a few seconds then, Claudette wondering what the pages said, Kate lost in her own thoughts.

“What’s going on with you and Dwight?” whispered Kate suddenly.

Claudette looked up at Kate in surprise.

“It’s about the Wraith,” continued Kate, “Isn’t it?” Her voice was low and careful, and she was keeping perfect speed on the gen, but she was watching Claudette between glances at her work. “We aren’t dumb, y' know,” she said, “You and he've been sneaking off ever since that one trial and talkin’—you’re both up to somethin’.”

“What?” asked Claudette quietly, trying to deflect, “We talk about everything—I don’t know what you mean.”

Kate gave her a look. “You’re not the best liar.”

_Probably true,_ thought Claudette unhappily, _But I can try._

“I think,” said Kate after waiting a second to see if Claudette would answer on her own, “that you’re still tryin’ to talk to him, to the Wraith, and that’s what Dwight was bein’ cagey about earlier.” She paused, and Claudette tried to avoid eye contact. “I wanna help you.”

“What?” whispered Claudette, looking up in surprise.

“I wanna help you talk to the Wraith. I’ve been think’n, and I wasn’t in any of the trials where y’all said he was actin' strange, but I know you, and you got good instincts when it comes to people. I trust you, and if after all that’s been happenin’ you still say there’s somethin’ goin’ on, then I bet there is, and I want to help.” Kate paused then, smiling at her across the gen. “Sides, it’s plain dumb for you two to try and do it all yourselves. You gotta know that.”

“I, uh,” Claudette whispered back, faltering.

“Don’t try’n dissuade me,” Kate cut in quietly, holding up a finger, “Or I’ll just try’n do it on my own. ‘N that’ll be worse for everyone.”

“You’re sure?” Claudette asked, giving up on straight up lying and feeling a lot of emotions at once.

“No need to tear up,” said Kate, having 180’d instantly from almost teasing to genuinely worried the second she realized Claudette might cry, “I didn’t mean ta bully ya. I just wanna help.”

“I’m just happy,” said Claudette, trying to choke down the crack in her voice, “and I feel bad at the same time.”

The generator lit then. Somewhere in the distance, so did another.

They heard a chainsaw rev.

“I really do want to help,” Kate said sincerely, putting a hand on Claudette’s across the gen and squeezing it, “But right now we gotta book it.”

She smiled at Claudette and took her hand, pulling her away from the generator, and they did book it, peeling off together and making for some nearby shrubs. They made cover before the Hillbilly reached the hill, but he saw their tracks and came after them with a vengeance. After trying to dodge him for a minute he saw them both for real, and they had to run. He was too much faster than them, roaring after the two girls with his chainsaw like a heat-seeking missile, and they had to split up so he wouldn’t get them both. Claudette made it halfway across the arena before he caught up to her, fueled by the terror of the spinning blades behind her.

She’d lost Kate near the lodge, when she’d jumped a window and Kate had run upstairs, and the Hillbilly had followed her—that was good, at least. Both Kate being okay, and him being the Hillbilly—Claudette was a significantly less afraid of him than she was the Cannibal.

Still, the sound of the rusty machine’s engine roared behind her and terrified her more than enough. She dove behind a tree, trying to get out of the way in time. The man was relentless, and she had no idea how he could run so well with that thing when he had to know that if he fell carrying it he could kill himself.

The Hillbilly just missed her, and Claudette dove to the side, dashing around a pile of logs and leaping a pallet, using it like a shield as he stood on the other side of it, looking at her.

She’d felt bad for him the first time she saw him—thought maybe he was one of them—one of the people trapped here. That was, in the few, short seconds before he’d seen her and run at her with that chainsaw. She’d actually come out of hiding that first time and tried to introduce herself that first time, ages ago. It had been a one-time mistake. His face was deformed in a way that looked so painful, and as scared as she was of him, she still felt bad when she looked at him. Like they were both victims, not just her. His glowing eyes stared at her as he raised a foot to smash the pallet.

Claudette ran then, dodging and weaving past anything she could, panic flooding her veins whenever she heard the chainsaw rev behind her. She saw a little windowsill in the house and went to leap it and felt the tearing, spinning furry of motorized blades slice into her shoulder as she leapt, carving a deep trail through her back and down a leg. She screamed and fell, bits of her skin and blood spattering the wall and floor and windowsill around her as she went down. She tried to crawl, even though she knew it didn’t matter, but it hurt too much, and she was shaking. The cutting was done, but she could still feel the blades tearing through her back like it was happening.

The Hillbilly stepped over the windowsill after her and grabbed her easily, slinging her over his shoulder like a haybale, and carried her down the dark steps to the basement.

The familiar pain of a hook tore through her shoulder with an awful, burning sensation that only accompanied the basement hooks, and she fought the urge to cry. Beneath her, the Hillbilly turned the chainsaw on and she started to shake uncontrollably. Sometimes the killers hit them for fun when they were up on a hook—cut up their legs or something. Claudette was so afraid of that, of being hurt just for the fun of it—the slow time they sometimes took. She was lucky this time though, and he turned away from her and disappeared back up the steps, leaving her alone.

As soon as he was gone, Quentin slipped out from behind the far wall where she’d had no idea he was before, medkit in hand, and gave her a silent, relied _Whew!_ at having not been found, then a little wave and reassuring smile. He waited a second for the Hillbilly to gain some distance, and then grabbed her by the waist and freed her from the hook. They both ran the second she was free, out the opposite direction the chainsaw sound had faded in, and didn’t stop until they were far enough out to feel safe.

Quentin gestured for her to hold still and opened his medkit. He’d gotten really good at this—she had too. Sometimes the others jokingly called them Field Medics. They’d thought it was silly, but there was a little truth to it. Somewhere along the way, the two of them had started sharing tips and techniques—methods, remedies, new ideas.  She’d taught him how to make some of her herbal dressings, and he’d helped her learn the drugs they found in medkits scattered throughout the trials.  They’d even experimented a little, trying to make better supplies. The chainsaw wound was deep, and wide, and choppy—not easy to stitch up. Knife wounds weren’t so bad—not even the Trapper’s cleaver, but chainsaws cut erratic and wild, tearing up your back and legs like a boat propeller. She did her best to keep quiet and hold still as he worked.

“How many left?” she asked quietly. She’d been so focused on the chainsaw during the chase, she hadn’t paid any attention to the generator progress.

“Two,” whispered Quentin, “You ran him for a long time.”

That was good. That was hopeful. And she’d been the only one hooked so far—that was really, really good.

“So,” said Quentin after a second, holding the needle he’d been using in his mouth for a second as he carefully lined up chunks of her torn shoulder muscle to sew back into place. “What can I do to help with the Wraith thing?”

“What?” asked Claudette nervously for the second time in under an hour.

He started to sew and she flinched, trying to keep her hurt cries as quiet as possible while he worked.

“Dwight told me,” Quentin answered in a hushed voice as he continued to work.

“He did?” she asked through the pain, surprised that he would do that without asking her if she thought it was a good idea.

“No,” admitted Quentin, continuing to stitch, “But you just did, so. What can I do?”

_Did he really just. Did I just get looney-tuned by…_ “You cheated by asking me while I’m in pain,” Claudette complained, gritting her teeth as one of the needle stabs bit especially deep. She whimpered.

“Sorry,” whispered Quentin, “I’ve almost got it.”

“I’ll talk to you about it after the trial,” said Claudette after a second of thought, “I have to tell Kate anyway, so I might as well do it all at once.”

“Kate asked too?” said Quentin, sounding surprised and happy.

“Yeah, beat you to it,” replied Claudette, fingers digging into the dirt to fight the pain in her back as he pulled the thread tight and tied it off.

“Good,” said Quentin, returning his supplies to the medkit and then removing and handing her a pain pill. “Sorry, I’d have given that first but I just grabbed this kit in the basement,” he added apologetically, “—didn’t even see it until just now.”

She dry-swallowed it.

Quentin pointed to a generator off to their right, back towards the house a little. She nodded.

“How’d you know?” Claudette asked in a hushed voice as they crept towards the generator.

“I kind of suspected ever since Dwight wouldn’t let me come help you all that first night after the bad trial,” Quentin replied, “I probably should have asked sooner.”

She nodded thoughtfully, then looked back at him. “You don’t have to, you know—we don’t know it’ll work.”

“Yeah,” replied Quentin as they reached the gen, “but I want to go home. It’s something—and it’s not a bad idea. So I’m in.”

He smiled at her and she smiled back and the two of them got to work, Claudette feeling guilty and worried about her friends, but also a little fuzzy and happy they were so ready to help her. First what had happened with the Wraith earlier today, now this? Things were actually looking up for once. _We can do this,_ she thought, smiling at the notion, _Together, we really can._

Claudette never saw the fourth member of their trial. Things got bad once they were down to one generator. Sometimes things just sort of worked out so that everyone had been on a hook before, and long enough that they knew if they got placed on one again the Entity would take them immediately and it would be over. That was it’s own kind of fear, and this was one of those trials. The Hillbilly had gotten whoever their fourth was while she and Quentin did a gen, then in rapid succession, Kate, their fourth a second time, her again, Kate again, and Quentin twice in a row like a bad pallet loop, all of them just going down one after the other. Their fourth had managed to light a gen during the second half of that though, and Kate had grabbed Quentin and made it out an exit, her right behind.

She was almost to the freedom beyond the brick walls, Kate and Quentin disappearing steps ahead, when she heard the roar of the chainsaw. There wasn’t time to hide or anything to hide behind, so she just ran—trying to make it the last few steps. She didn’t quite, and the blades cut her down with incredible force, chewing up her backbone with the swing and the Hillbilly almost stumbled into her mid-run.

Safety was right there though—just inches away, and as the Hillbilly recovered from his swing, moving the chainsaw so he could pick her up, she pulled herself across the threshold of the exit and heard the familiar black spikes shoot up behind her as the Hillbilly reached for her, blocking him.

The healing wasn’t instantaneous, but it was fast. The pain went, and then she felt the uneven and broken sensation in her back fade and she pulled herself to her feet. Across the trial area, she sensed the injured fourth member of their group—someone she didn’t recognize—turn and leave through the other gate. They’d all made it.

With the recent fear fading and the pain already a memory, Claudette felt giddy, almost peaceful, as she looked back at the Hillbilly and his glowing white eyes. Because everything was going so well, she felt impulsive, and on a whim she picked up the little circular grey scarf she was wearing and shouted, “Hey, catch!” to the Hillbilly, tossing the piece of fabric across the barrier as the trial started to fade around them.

The scarf bounced off his chest and fell to his feet and he looked down at it, and then back up at her.

“It’s getting cold out,” she called over. Claudette clasped her hands in front of her and smiled at him. “Thanks for not actually killing anyone this time. Stay warm!”

He blinked at her, and then the trial and he disappeared around her, and she was standing back at the campfire.

“Woo-hoo!” Kate snagged her from behind and easily picked her up and spun her in the air. “Perfect trial! No casualties!”

Quentin grinned and gave her a high-five as she came back down and Kate let go of her.

“Yeah! Anyone get a look at who our fourth was?” Asked Claudette.

“I’d never seen him before,” replied Kate. “But he was older. Black, suit and coat—looked kinda like a dad or a college professor.” She looked at Quentin like she expected him to continue for her.

“I didn’t see him either,” said Quentin, shaking his head.

“But…I only got him off a hook once,” said Kate. “If it wasn’t you or Claudette, who did it the other time?”

Quentin shrugged. “I guess he saved himself. It’s hard, but I’ve done it before.”

“Oh, right...” said Kate, “I’m so used to workin’ as a team now I forgot about that—used to do it a lot.”

“Yeah,” agreed Claudette. Sometimes she’d still try that—if the situation was desperate, but it was agonizingly painful, and almost always futile. It just sped up the sacrifice process and brought the Entity down on you most of the time. Still, there were times when someone burned salt and prayed the luck would help them free themself. And Nea and Jake had gotten really good at it for awhile—there was a long stretch of time a good while back where they spent match after match burning salt and freeing themselves from the hook. It still didn’t always work, but they’d gotten really good at struggling free, and it drove the killers crazy. There had been too many downsides, though, and the killers had started to adjust to the strategy after a bit, so neither of them had tried it in a long time.

“Well, whatever happened, we all made it—that’s what counts,” decided Kate. She turned to Claudette. “N’ I think you have somethin’ to talk to us about?”

Claudette nodded and motioned to Dwight from across the campfire to come over. “Yeah, we have a lot to share.”

 

* * *

  

Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t finish this entry before, because I have more to tell. I don’t even know where to begin. I guess with the hope that I haven’t been doing all of this for nothing. Maybe someday someone will find this and it'll actually help them out. I found a couple of pages of journal writings today—all by Benedict Baker. You’ve probably found something of his at this point, no matter when you’re reading this. It’s rare to find something he wrote, but I think we’ve all managed to come across at least one. Still, it’s usually fragments—just little things. This was pages. Just two, stuck together and in bad repair, but that’ still so much more than usual, and there was a lot in them.

It’s such an odd time to find something like that though, it almost feels like a trap—with so much already going on? Maybe I should be more nervous about that, but even though the timing is odd I just don’t think it’s a bad thing. I don’t think it’s some kind of trap; I think it’s a connection. We’re learning—we’re finding pathways through the darkness, and I think we opened a doorway to the knowledge someone else left.

That said, there are no secrets of the universe revealed. The first is a bit about the towns of Wetherfield and Weeks, before this man was in the realm. He mentions weekly Penny Dreadfuls, which made me worry he was from back in the 1860s. The second bit is mostly about a man named Vigo, who walked the fog looking for answers. He calls him an alchemist, which is funny, because what he describes is a lot more about biology than the creation of gold. While Vigo sounds more like a chemist or a biologist than an alchemist, some of the conversation Benedict describes having with him sounds really important to me. I’m going to transcribe both pages and attach it to the back of this for you to read for yourself. The other most interesting part to me is a little bit at the end, after Benedict has finished writing about Vigo. This last bit is about the Huntress. Benedict thought the Huntress was more human-seeming than most of the killers here, and that from the way she acted she was looking for something. That doesn’t sound like a lot to go off of, but I’ll keep it in mind. Maybe I can figure out what that is? I’ll ask the others, too. If we can figure out what she wants, maybe we can help her? I sort of tried making friends with the Hillbilly after a trial today, too. I think I just confused him, but we’ll see—who knows! Maybe things will get better—maybe a lot of things.

Back to the journals. I’ve not met Benedict Baker, and I didn’t think any of us had, because I always thought he must have died a long time ago. But I was wrong. I’ve talked to everyone, and Nea said she’d seen him a few times, but that they spoke just once—survived a close trial together and traded names. That was back before she joined us. It makes me wonder; if we’ve all managed to find eachother and stay as a group, why haven’t really any of us seen him? How many more of us are out there, and why do some of us get this companionship, and some are left to wander alone? Does he know something the Entity doesn’t want us to? Or is it something else? Something random, or a plan I just can’t see in motion, or worse, is it something personal?

The only one out of us all who has properly met him is Kate. Twelve times, according to her.  She met another man before finding us, too. Another David.  I have to wonder why? And why not again since? This may sound silly, but I wonder if it’s her singing. It seems dumb to say there’s something a little magical about Kate, but I feel like it’s true. There’s something about her music—maybe it’s just the ability to sing happily in a place like this at all, but I don’t think so. Music has always been special. There’s no real reason for humans to be able to sing or play instruments at all—it isn’t necessary for life, but there’s no arguing that it’s one of the most incredible things people can do. Almost magic. There’s something especially amazing about Kate when she sings—it makes me feel hopeful when I hear her, and the sound brings a lot back to me. I remember listening to music on my headphones gardening—I remember taking piano lessons when I was six, and playing new cds on my old boom box when I was eleven while I did chores. I think about my car stereo, and Christmas time with mom and dad caroling, and the way my whole life music could make me feel like I was going to be okay. I used to have a hard time with people. I get anxious easily. I would always put on headphones at school and drown out how I felt with old Beach Boys songs. That kind of small-time natural magic shouldn’t still work in a place like this, but with Kate it does. I wonder if she’s a beacon people can see even when the Entity doesn’t want them to, and that’s how Benedict found her? I wonder how much choice we have about anything here, and how much power to change things. No matter what the answer to that question is, I’m going to keep acting like I do have a chance to make things better, because if I don’t then what’s the point? If you have hope in things, you can make them happen.

That has to be the way it is, doesn’t it?

I do my best not to talk like I’m giving up on things, even when I feel down, because I need to keep everyone else’s spirits up, but…the truth is I don’t always feel like I can keep going either. Sometimes I want to give up. Or I want to sit in a corner and cry. I miss my mom, and my dad. I miss home, and my garden, and my stuffed animals, and the neighbor’s great big borzoi Frigga. Mostly I’m scared. I’m scared of everything, all the time. I'm scared I might not see my parents again, and of the sound of chainsaws, and crows startling. I’m even scared of being shocked by the generators. I don’t want to die, or to let people down, or to get hurt. The worst part of being here is that everything’s already so bad, but we all know it can get worse. And it does—it has before. Things got better when we started to become a group, but sometimes I think we wonder how long it will last. I know I do. There’s this new fear of losing each other, because I think we all kind of know that this is something that could go away someday. What would we even do—what would I do, if I ever lost any of them? One way or another, for real? I can’t even think about that…

I’m sorry. This isn’t useful. I usually don’t go on like that. I guess I just brought it up to say that things are rough—I’m sure they are for you too, but there are some things that help. Being in the group has made things easier for all of us. Even if I’m a nervous about losing people, being with them is well worth it. They are all incredible. A lot of the time it’s little things, like Meg’s dumb _Welcome to Hell with Meg Thomas_ show, or Ace’s bad stories about previous near-death experiences, but they mean a lot. Kate’s been a big blessing too. Ever since she got here, waking up to the sound of Kate singing has made things so much better—I think for all of us. It reminds us of home.

Maybe she was right. We should do a song night.

Along the lines of things that have made my life better in unexpected ways recently, during the last trial not only did we all make it out alive, but during the trial Kate asked me what was going on with Dwight and me and the Wraith, just out of the blue, and not ten minutes later Quentin did the same thing, and both of them want to help us talk to him now. I tried, but I couldn’t convince them nothing was going on, because I’m apparently not the best liar. End result being that after the trial Dwight and I brought them up to speed and now there’s four of us working together. It’s really nice, because they’re both genuinely interested, and how hopeful they are makes me feel more sure about this myself. They had some good ideas, too. Kate said maybe we should try giving him gifts—like flowers or food. I wonder if he eats? And if he does, what he eats? She’s very right that that would be, at the very least, a little surprising and thought-provoking. If I was running around killing people with a sickle and someone handed me a pie and a daisy chain, you better believe I’d be trying to figure that one out for awhile. Quentin wanted to know a lot about the specifics of what was going on right before he started acting weird each time, and thought maybe we could try to recreate some of that—try to trigger the same response. They both agree that, after everything we’ve sort of pieced together, it’s pretty likely he’ll be acting weird again or have forgotten things after what just happened with Dwight.

Maybe we should tell Jake and Meg, too? I don’t know, because Kate and Quentin really seem like they want to be involved, but I don’t want to ask the wrong person and accidentally guilt them into helping me do something dangerous, or to make them worry. I wish I could know how people would feel about things before talking to them—that would solve a lot of my problems, actually. I miss getting to ask them for advice on the big things I’m trying to figure out about this place, though. Especially because they’re both really smart, and they’re family to me. I'd feel a lot better if we were all doing this together.

I know why we decided not to though. I really hope I’m doing an okay job of all of this. It’s hard to know what I should do next. Dwight and I, and now Kate and Quentin too, agreed we have to talk to the others about what’s going on soon, but we’re going to wait until after we see the Wraith again and see how many of our guesses we can maybe prove, or if he’s acting crazy again. He might mori a bunch of people like last time…

Okay, last point of interest. The page about Vigo mentioned a conversation he had with the man about the campfire—our campfire. Benedict talked about how it’s something that brings relief, but also sort of its own dread, and that one time he tried to burn his hand in the fire, but nothing happened. He’s right—I tried the same thing a few minutes ago after reading what he said, and the campfire is warm, but I felt nothing trying to burn my hand, and my skin was fine. I’ve seen it burn things, though—I’ve seen it burn flowers, and salt, and papers, and even jars. But not us. It’s strange—I always sort of thought it was real fire. I mean, it never goes out, so I guess I knew that, but I didn’t expect it not to burn me. Vigo said he believed that the campfire was an important part of this world. That we’re almost in like…a large house, with closet after closet that open off a main hallway, and several stories. That instead of it being built like a house though, it’s a sphere, and the hallways all start at the center, not the bottom. He believed the campfire was the end of one are—the part closest to the center of this whole place. The part of our little closet nearest to whatever is in the middle of the bubble. Vigo said that everything here is artificial, but some of it is significant, and then he told Benedict to look through the cracks in the basement sometime. I guess that’s another thing I’m going to do—and that’s not one I’m going to tell anyone else until I’ve done it—the basement is the worst place in any trial, and I’m doing that one alone.

Whatever else happens, I’m glad we’re more together on this. Laurie seems a little better too, the past few days. She’s been spending a lot of time with David and Quentin, talking strategy, and with Meg, Ace, and Kate talking pop-culture. Apparently Meg has decided to recreate a whole string of childhood favorite films for her—which I wish she’d told me, because I missed all of _Hocus Pocus_ , and I like that one too. I really would have wanted to see it! I heard she even sang when they got to the musical performance. Going off and scheming with Dwight has really cost me… Oh well. She’s doing _Homeward Bound_ next, and I have no idea at all how she plans to pull that one off, but I want to find out. I’ve heard her do a Michael J. Fox impression, and she’s actually pretty worryingly good at it. The girl has a mind like a steel trap when it comes to media. Jake dared her once to recite as much of  _Back to the Future_ as she could, with some bet over how much she could recall. It was legendary. She did the whole movie. I'm not kidding, the whole two hours, non-stop—either word-for-word, or close enough that no one caught her and she bs'd her way through. Never a hint of a struggle to remember a line. I couldn't look away. She got super into it and started doing sound effects and describing events between dialogue, too. Imagine the kind of YouTube content she could put out if she had access to an editing program and wifi.

I guess that’s about it—I have no regrets about including Meg's performances. They're noteworthy. But, I will go ahead and copy the notes from Benedict after I finish though, like I said. Hopefully I'll have updates for you soon. I hope the Wraith is going to be okay. Dwight feels really bad about what happened in the trial, and I wish I knew what to do to help him. Back when he first told me all of this, he said he thinks he shouldn’t have said anything to get the Wraith to help him, and should have just let the Entity take him. I tried my best to make him feel better, but I don’t think that it worked. I’m not great with people, still. I wish I was. Anyway, I’ll try to think of something better to do. I'll keep trying.

I am a little worried myself though. Whatever did happen to the Wraith, I hope we find out soon.

-Claudette Morel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Interestingly, bog laurel (or kalamia polifolia) has no real symbolic connotations like most flowers. Instead, it is unusual for its use as both an incredibly useful medical agent, and a potentially deadly poison. The poison can induce nausea, internal pain, dangerously low blood-pressure, loss of consciousness, and death. Supposedly, at one point the leaves were used in a concentrate form to commit suicide. However, used in more moderate doses it works as a good sedative. Bog laurel can also help calm inflammation in injuries or inflammatory diseases spectacularly, as well as to deal with internal hemorrhaging. A bit surprisingly, in an overdose, alcohol works as a decent enough stimulant to usually save the patient. Also worth noting is that, as the description for the uncommon and rare bog laurel offerings describe, bog laurel is also just a very pretty purple flower.
> 
> Thank you to everyone reading, commenting, and leaving kudos for the continued support--means the world. I've been away on a road trip, but am home. This chapter is a little bit more lore, which is both fun to research and a nice break for me, especially since I have a lot of action coming soon. I hope you all continue to enjoy, and thank you again for reading.


	19. Going Big Places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dwight does his best to juggle some internal group troubles while planning how to make contact with the Wraith.

“Hey!”

“Ah—hey!” replied Dwight, the papers he’d been holding going everywhere. He hadn’t heard Nea coming, like he never did, and as she plopped down next to him without warning had to stumble over himself to catch the loose pages he’d just scattered—pages of drawings and notes he’d been working on trying to record everything he could remember from the encounter in the basement. It had probably been at least a full day since things had happened, but the memories were still strong, and he’d been working hard to copy down anything that might be useful.

“This a bad time?” asked Nea, looking so warm and happy he would have thought she was high if this was a college dorm instead of a tree by the edge of a forest in this hellscape.

“No—no I’m good. What is it?” said Dwight, getting the last of his papers under control and flipped upside-down and away from view.

“Sweet then. I need some help with…Uh,” Nea hesitated, leaning forward and folding her hands together nervously. They were sitting beneath one of the trees at the edge of the campfire’s clearing, which gave them some very solid distance from the assorted people at the fire itself, but she was still casting glances that way.

“Nobody can hear us,” prompted Dwight after a second.

Nea turned red and blew a little piece of hair out of her face, then turned to look at him. “Okay, so. I mean, you were there, with Feng and me in the trial, so you know—”

“—Oh yeah, no, I very much know,” replied Dwight, memories of the last trial still _quite_ fresh in his memory.

Nea grinned and raised her hand for a high-five.

“I’m not gonna,” started Dwight, but she brought the hand almost in front of his face and waved it there and he gave in. “Okay,” he sighed, resignedly fiving her. “Was that it? You wanted to come make sure I definitely knew you were dating Feng? Because trust me, _everyone_ knows.”

She shook her head. “No, I uh. I’m not even sure she’d call it that—it’s complicated. Just, I asked Jake before and that was a bad idea, and you seem like, more the person I should ask so,” she spun her hand in the air like she was looking for the right words, “I—With Feng I don’t know. I mean, I feel great, and I’m super happy, but also like, I don’t know?”

“You…” Dwight trailed off, “I’m sorry, what are you asking me? I mean I guess I’m glad you think I’m more responsible than Jake, so thank you for that—that’s very nice, but I have no idea what you’re talking—”

“—I’m talking about how I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now!” said Nea, throwing her hands up in exasperation, “And I don’t want to fuck it up, so…So, I guess—Just, like,” she shoved him, and he wasn’t at all prepared so the force half-knocked him over, “give me advice!”

“Okay,” said Dwight, slowly recovering from the shove and righting himself, “First, calm down.”

“Sorry.” Nea clasped her hands together again as he straightened up.

Dwight looked Nea up and down. People came to him for a lot of weird things, but it had never before been relationship advice. “Look, I don’t know why you’re coming to me about this—”

“I mean, who am I supposed to ask,” cut in Nea, “my _real_ dad?”

Suddenly Dwight felt both very old and like he’d been kicked in the gut. “Okay.” He sighed and adjusted his glasses, which had fallen askew when he’d been shoved over. “You want to know what you’re supposed to do now that you’re dating?”

“Yes,” said Nea, nodding, “I mean, I guess it’d be different in the real world, but here? I can’t like—take her to the movies. I mean we could go listen to Meg recount _Treasure Planet_ word for word, and that’d be pretty cool, but I don’t know if that’s like _date_ material. So what—I—Do I like—I don’t even know, Dwight!” she threw up a hand and then slowly let her chin rest on her other palm. “I mean…and how does this change stuff for me during trials? Should I always try and take hits for her, and between them do I…what? I mean, obviously other than making out,”

“Okay,” said Dwight, trying to speed her along.

“Well,” continued Nea, “What am I supposed to change now?”

 _Change?_ Dwight considered that for a second. He’d never seen Nea look so scattered. Sure, he’d seen her under pressure or in a pretty bad way, but this kind of disorganized and out of her depth? Not really. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen her panic before, but, O _hhh, I’ve never seen her panic over nothing before, _he realized. He thought for a second. _Wait, hold on._ “Did you…Did you two only _just_ get back form the woods?”

“Yeah,” replied Nea. “Like, uh, I don’t know, ten minutes ago?”

 _Jesus,_ thought Dwight. “Okay, well, then you two were gone for what—four-five hours? And this is _after_ yesterday, where we barely even saw you two. So…you’re probably off to a good start.”

She gave him a sly look and a little nonchalant shrug, raising her eyebrows in an _Oh, you know_ kind of way.

“Okay, first of all, you stop that,” said Dwight, “Second, did you really run off from her right after getting back just to ask me about dating because of some kind of first-time jitters?”

“Hey!” Nea cut in, “Not first-time, and it’s not like that. I didn’t ‘run off,’ I just,” she combed her fingers through her side bangs for a second, looking away from him. “I just…” she sighed and looked back at him, “Look, don’t be a dick, okay? Promise?”

“Am I a dick so regularly that I have to promise not to be one?” asked Dwight, sounding almost insulted even though he wasn’t.

“I guess not. I’m used to talking to Jake about stuff,” conceded Nea. “But promise anyway.”

Dwight nodded and motioned her to go on.

“Okay. So. Feng…” Nea spoke slowly, trying carefully to pick out how to say what she was thinking, “She like—she didn’t super want to…well that’s not it exactly…she…I guess she wasn’t sure about saying yes? To, uh, dating me?”

 _That’s not how it looked from the sidelines,_ thought Dwight, but he didn’t say anything—just kept listening attentively.

“And that’s okay,” Nea hurried to add, “I get, whatever. But I really like her, and I’m super glad she agreed to give it a shot, and I think it _will_ work out well, but. I guess…” she stopped and tapped her foot against the ground in irritation, “I guess like, I don’t want to fuck up? I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying too hard, or being pushy, or clingy? Like—I don’t want her to think I’m suddenly being super nice and getting her gifts and shit because I’m trying to guilt her into staying or something like that? Because I wouldn’t do that…” she added, looking miserable, “and I really, really don’t want to fuck this up and make her feel pressured, but I do want to make her happy, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to do all of this.”

Nea leaned forward, resting her hands at the sides of her face as she stared at the dirt. Dwight watched her thoughtfully for a second. She was usually so casual and assured. Easing through things. He hadn’t had any idea before yesterday that she even liked Feng, much less that it was as complicated as all of this. Sitting there with her face cupped in her hands, she looked so dejected. _Never seen you look forlorn before,_ he thought, _It’s weird._ Then he thought, _Oh wait, shit—I’m supposed to be thinking of a response to this and I haven’t said anything. Uh._

“I’m…afraid she’ll change her mind if I fuck it up, but I don’t know what that looks like,” Nea said after a few seconds, staring down at nothing. “And I don’t want that to happen, but I also don’t want to force her to do anything…Or guilt her. I don’t know…I want something to go well for once. I was really happy, you know?” she asked, stealing a glance up at him, “For like, a good, decent chunk of today. And yesterday. I can’t say that about any other day I’ve been here. I don’t want to lose that. But I also don’t want to do the wrong thing.” She let out a slow sigh and turned her attention back to the grass between her shoes.

“Look, Nea?” said Dwight after a moment, turning so he was facing her more head-on, and leaning forward himself so his face was level with hers, “I think you’re just overthinking this. You don’t have to worry about everything you do so much—the two of you were friends before this. She’s not some stranger you met on Tinder you don’t know how to talk to.”

“That’s true,” said Nea, still looking at the ground.

“You asked her out,” said Dwight.

Nea nodded, flushing a little.

“Okay, so why?” prompted Dwight.

“Why?” asked Nea like she couldn’t comprehend the question. “Why ask? Uh, because she’s amazing and smart and _super_ hot,”

 _Well, she’s not wrong,_ thought Dwight absently.

“And I just like her—I don’t know what to tell you,” said Nea, moving one hand to gesture hopelessly, “I want her to be happy, and I like to be with her.”

“Okay,” said Dwight, raising his hands in a _why not_ gesture, “Great—sounds like a fine motive to me. So go do that. You all have been friends for a long time, and you’ve made her happy before. Just don’t make it weird because you’re dating now. You care about her, she makes you happy—so show it. All you need to do is not ask her all the time how she thinks things are going between you, or if she’s more sure about dating—wait for her to tell you that herself. Other than that, do what you did before. Go talk to her, make her laugh, be a good friend. She’s not going to get pissed at you for being nice unless you’re attaching a price to it. Just go be normal.”

“…That’s it?” asked Nea after a second, finally looking back up at him.

“Yeah,” replied Dwight, “Just don’t push her. If she seems like she needs time alone, let her have it. Now go be nice to your girlified and quit wasting time with me.”

“Hey! Rude,” Nea cut in, lightning-fast hooking her elbow around his neck and pulling him closer to her and holding him in a decently uncomfortable headlock for a second before flicking him in the forehead with her index finger. “It’s not a waste of time. You give good advice.”

Dwight pulled away, rubbing his forehead, “I give very obvious advice, but you’re welcome.”

She shrugged. “Well, then I’m dumb. But your obvious stuff feels more grounding now with a dad stamp of approval.” Nea stood up, stretching and smiling down at him. “Yeah…I do feel better, thanks.”

“If you’re going to use me as a father figure, then don’t hit me,” said Dwight, hand still on the sore spot where she’d flicked him. “Show me some respect.”

“I don’t show my own father some respect,” replied Nea, winking.

“Well, then shame on you for being a bad daughter,” replied Dwight, adjusting his papers. “Now get out of here and go pick your girlfriend some flowers or something.”

“Oh! That’s actually not bad—a basic romantic gesture I actually _can_ do here,” replied Nea, considering. “Yeah, okay—thanks dad!”

Dwight gave an unhappy grunt as she waved and disappeared back towards the others.

_I’m not that old. I’m not the oldest. How did I skip the rest of my life and go straight to being a father?_

Letting out a deep sigh, Dwight returned to trying to work. He’d done his best to remember any words he’d heard the Wraith speak—not that he would know what they meant, but it still seemed like a good idea to record them if he could for sure remember any. He was sketching, too, trying to recall every detail about what the Entity had looked like to him. Of course, he’d seen it before—every time he was sacrificed he _sort of_ saw it, but this had been different. _It’s just too bad I’m really shit at drawing,_ he thought, looking down unhappily at pencil sketches he’d been working at for hours that still looked like a bad artist’s attempt at a creepy child’s drawing for a low-budget horror rpg.

 _Well, might as well spend more time. I’ve already wasted so much that if I don’t try and make this usable I’m going to feel like garbage,_ thought Dwight, starting to erase the edge of a drawing so he could change it.

“Hey, uh…Got a second?”

Dwight looked up from his spot to see Meg Thomas standing awkwardly few feet away with a hand raised like she was going to rap her knuckles on the tree to ask permission to enter as if the bark was a closed door. This was especially unsettling because Meg usually didn’t need permission to come chat, and even if she was being polite, Meg definitely wouldn’t have considered him trying to draw to be something in the category of an interruptible activity. Her asking permission to come hang out gave him the distinct impression that he was about to be asked to give help with something both complicated and difficult.

“Yeah, of course,” said Dwight, sitting up a little and moving over so there was room for her to sit with her back against the tree too. She sat down, leaving about half a foot of space between them---another bad sign, Dwight was sure. Meg was usually all for using people as sofas and no personal space with friends.

“Thanks,” said Meg, her expression heavy.

 _I feel like a doctor,_ thought Dwight as he waited for the shoe to drop. He’d been in and out of meetings all day, as it were. First Kate, then Claudette, then Claudette, Quentin, and Kate all together for ideas, then Nea, and now this.

“I need to talk to somebody, and I decided it should be you, because you’re nicer than Jake, and I can’t live with myself if Claudette’s disappointed in me,” said Meg, turning to face him matter-of-factly.

“Solid logic,” replied Dwight, “I think. What did you do?”

Meg shook her head. “I didn’t do anything. I kind of thought I could just handle all this on my own. Not think about it, or think my way through it, but now I can’t. So.”

“I’ll do what I can,” replied Dwight, setting his papers on the ground beside him. “So if you didn’t _do_ something, then what’s wrong? I mean, other than the obvious…everything.”

“Where to even start,” answered Meg, leaning her head back against the tree. She smiled for a second, but it disappeared in a flicker, replaced by something sad and tired, and after a few seconds of thoughtful silence she turned her head to look at him. “Hey Dwight, who were you before all this?”

“Uh,” he thought about that for a second, “I don’t know. I guess.” He looked over at her and gave a half-hearted smile. “Kind of a shitty answer, but it’s true. I was still working on figuring that out.”

Meg shook her head. “No, I mean—your family. Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Pet fish?”

“Oh,” said Dwight, “No—no pet fish. There was a dog that sort of lived at the office at work. Barkley. I know-I know—don’t look at me like that, I didn’t give him the pun name, I just worked there.”

“Family? Friends?” prompted Meg.

“Well,” said Dwight, shifting to join her comfortable lean against the tree, “I have a mom and a dad. My mom was—is—kind of overprotective and likes to bother me and check in all the time, dad has always been more busy, but he’s okay. I guess I’m kind of average.”

“Girlfriend?” she asked. He shook his head. “Boyfriend?” he shook it again. Meg nodded thoughtfully. “Me neither. I was too busy. Used to run track.”

“Figured it was something like that—with the jersey,” replied Dwight. There was another pause while neither of them said anything, but with as much time as they’d spent together in this place, the pauses in their conversations had become comfortable. Not forced.

“I never wanted one before,” said Meg, staring off into space, “But I do now.”

“Yeah?” asked Dwight, turning to look at her.

“I waited too long,” said Meg, slowly turning her attention away from the leaves above her to glance at him. She gave him a sad little smile. “I kind of thought we were all too stupid to make a move. But that was just me, I guess.”

 _Meg... Shit._ “Nea? Or Feng?” asked Dwight.

“Nea,” she replied, smiling wistfully for a second before the expression faded. “Such a cool punk. Fast, stealthy, stylish in a loud way, likes my memes. What more could you hope for?”

“For how long?”

She thought for a moment. “Not sure. Didn’t happen all at once. But awhile now.”

“I’m sorry,” Dwight said after a few seconds of silence.

“It’s okay,” said Meg. “I get it.”

He looked at her, wondering if that were true at all. Meg looked far away, and a little reserved, like she was trying to keep something contained.

“The thing is,” Meg continued after a second, turning to look at him, “I feel bad. Like, not that they’re together—I mean I do feel sad about that, but what’s worse is that I feel bad about _how_ I feel.” She paused and looked at him, her expression tired but firm. “It’s not pretty. This is your once chance to opt out.”

Dwight nodded slowly. “That’s okay. Go on.”

She gave a resigned shrug and tucked her knees up to her chest. “I…I do genuinely love the both of them, even though I’m upset.” She looked him in the eye, trying to communicate her sincerity, “And I’m happy for them—really—I know that’s true. I do want them to be happy, but…” she shook her head and balled one of her hands into a fist, unconsciously running the fingertips of her free hand over the white knuckles as she talked. “I’m also angry. Like really fucking ugly kind of angry. And it’s not fair, or right, but I am so mad at them, all the time, for being happy when I’m not—and I know I’m jealous. I’m jealous that it isn’t me. I don’t want them to be together.”

She let out a long sigh and cut her eyes over in his direction to see how he was taking it, looking a little bit nervous, but tired more than anything. Dwight met her eyes, but his expression didn’t give away a whole lot.

“I know I shouldn’t feel like this, and it makes me shitty,” Meg continued, looking away again, “but I don’t know how not to. It isn’t the only thing I feel,” she added, sounding exhausted, “I do really want them to be happy, and I think part of me is happy they’re happy, but I can’t _just_ feel that. Even when I’m happy for them, I’m also angry, and confused, and sad. I feel all of it at the same time, and it’s making me crazy. I want to hit something, or curl up in a corner and die. I’m so fucking unhappy that they’re happy together, and at myself for being so unhappy they’re together, and that there’s this little part of me that doesn’t think I should feel bad for being angry, and I…” Meg stopped and looked away for a long stretch of seconds while Dwight waited. “Does that make me a bad person?” she asked finally, and when she looked back over at him her eyes were bright with tears she was holding back.

“No, no, hey,” said Dwight, moving closer and putting an arm around her. She half-heartedly tried to push him away with a hand but it didn’t stop him. “Look, are you going to treat them differently? Like let them die in trials, or stop being friends, ban them from your movies?”

“No,” said Meg, giving him an almost horrified look and then turning away, “Well…maybe. Not the trials, that’s fucked up, but I don’t know if I can go joke with them right now.”

“Forever?” asked Dwight.

She shook her head, and when she spoke her nose sounded a little stuffed up from her body’s intense desire to cry. “No, of course not forever. Just a couple of days.”

“Then don’t worry about it,” said Dwight, trying to get her to look at him, “You’re hurt because you lost something; that’s okay. We can’t control how feel. Anger and jealousy are only bad if you let it change you. You aren’t a bad person just for _feeling_ bad. Okay?”

She looked at him finally, little streaks down the side of her face from crying silently, but she didn’t say anything. After a second she closer her eyes and shifted, burying her face in his button-down and leaning against him like a cushion.

“You still care about them, right?” asked Dwight, putting his other arm around her.

“Of course,” came her muffled response from the shirt, “I love them. They’re my friends, and even if I want to yell at them I’d take a bullet for them.”

Dwight smiled down at the top of her head. “You got nothing to worry about, Meg.”

It was quiet for a moment, Meg content to stay in the comfort of the shirt and Dwight in no rush to make her move, then she spoke again, quietly.

“It’s not the big thing, though.” Her voice was almost a whisper, and he wasn’t sure he’d heard the whole thing.

“What?” asked Dwight.

“I ran track,” said Meg again, like she was trying to prompt his memory of news gained so recently he couldn’t possibly have already forgotten. “But I stopped. I didn’t have a girlfriend or boyfriend either, like you. But also no dad—just a mom. And I stopped track and went home because she got sick.”

“Sick?” repeated Dwight, releasing his grip on Meg a little so he could see her better. She had the side of her face still pressed against his shirt and was looking off at nothing.

“Yeah,” said Meg, blinking as silent tears slid down her cheeks, “She was sick. Really bad—house-ridden kind of bad. I was supposed to go to college, but I went home to take care of her. Because there was no one else to look after her, you know?”

Dwight thought about his own mother. She’d always annoyed him when he was little, checking too often to see how he was, interrupting him when he was on mic with friends, doing embarrassing things like sending a birthday cake with a photo printed picture of him as a kid putting on a yard sale and the words “Going Big Places” on top to his workplace as a happy 1 year anniversary of him getting his dead-end office job. She’d payed for him to go to college.

“You must love her a lot,” he said, not sure what else to say.

“Of course,” replied Meg, nose stuffed up, “She’s my mom—the best one out there—raised a wild little brat single-handed.” There was a second where she paused to breathe, and then she asked him, “You got here in 2016?”

“Yeah,” replied Dwight. “Me and Claudette both.”

“I got here in 2014,” said Meg, her voice hushed. “That probably doesn’t sound like much. But…that means it’s been at least two years. Probably more. And,” her voice cracked and she paused to try and get it more under control, “and I know she wasn’t doing so well before? Not a lot of time left. I…I came home because no one else was there to take care of her. She needed somebody, and we didn’t have any money to hire a nurse. Without me home…I. Dwight, if it’s been two years…” He could feel her chest heaving as she tried to keep herself under control. “She’s dead,” Meg finally managed to get out. She collapsed then, all the strength she’d been using to keep herself in check gone, and she buried her face in his chest and sobbed, the sound muffled but agonizing as her whole body shook.

 _Fuck,_ thought Dwight, _I don’t know what to do._ He wrapped his arms tight around her and held her, trying to bring her some kind of comfort. “You don’t know that,” he said softly, “She might be okay.”

He could feel her shake her head. “She needed someone there all the time,” Meg choked out, “To take her meds, and look after her, get her places. Our Doctor said she probably only had another year, but recovery was possible. Hard, but. We were gonna beat it, Dwight,” she looked up at him, like she was begging him somehow to understand, to turn back time and change things, “We promised each other that we were. And she was gonna be okay. If I just went missing one day, any money we had she will have spent looking for me, and for what? For nothing—to die alone, and thinking I probably got raped and murdered on some backroad? I couldn’t even be with her, and she’s going to have thought the same thing about me. Her last months won’t even have been good. They’ll have been hell.” She shook her head, any remaining semblance of okay shattering as she spoke. “Nobody is going to pay for the funeral. I would have made it pretty. Even without much money. I would have gotten so many flowers. It could have been nice.”

“Meg, I’m so sorry,” said Dwight, pulling her close like he could shield her from the world, even for a couple of seconds. “I’m so sorry.”

She cried for a long time after that, sobs eventually just silent tears and quivering. He never once let go. It was the only thing he could do.

Dwight felt helpless too. One of his best friends coming to him for help and comfort, but what could he actually do for her? Promise her? Nothing. When he’d first gotten them to form a little group it had been with the promise that he knew how to help them survive, but that was an empty promise. He couldn’t do anything for them. There was no way to control things, not really. All he could do was be here, and that felt like so little right now. Such a small gesture it was almost meaningless. _I’m sorry,_ he thought, looking down at Meg, feeling where her tears had soaked through his white shirt. _I don’t know how to help you._

Finally, the shaking died down and Meg grew still. She stayed in the shirt for awhile after that, just breathing as they sat in silence. Then, after a bit, Meg let go of him and sat beside him again, rubbing her face with the arm of her track jacket. Her face was red and splotchy, and her eyes swollen from crying. “Thanks,” she said, letting out a breath. “It probably doesn’t feel like it, but I needed to tell somebody that and It helps a little. To get to say it.”

Dwight leaned over and stretched an arm around her shoulder and they sat there, side by side in silence for a minute looking up at the trees and the dark sky above. _Not even the same sky, the same moon. Nothing’s the same as back home,_ thought Dwight, unable to find the sky beautiful. It was like being trapped in a room with a painting of the sky and knowing it was the closest thing you’d ever be allowed to see.

“Nice, isn’t it,” Meg said from beside him, and he looked at her in surprise. “As bad as everything gets here, at least there’s still detail. On the leaves and stuff. This is a nice tree.”

 _I guess,_ thought Dwight, glancing at the tree. Oak. He hadn’t really had an opinion on the tree—it was just somewhere to get his work done out of sight of the others enough they couldn’t really see him, but close enough that he wouldn’t lose track of the campfire and get lost. It was sort of pretty, though, in the way that old trees were. He’d never been much of an outdoors person, but there was something. Quiet and big. Made you think a little about how much they’d seen, how much more they’d see after, and still time to bear witness of your insignificant moment beneath it. Even if it wasn’t a real tree.

“You know,” Dwight said, looking over at Meg, “Your mom would have been really proud of you.”

Meg looked back in surprise, her eyes glossy like she might start crying again.

“Out of everyone, you do the best job of making it feel like home. Keeping people’s spirits up,” continued Dwight, “Definitely better than me. Your mom raised a fighter, and a good person. You look after us.”

A tear slid down her cheek and Meg smiled at him, her voice a little chocked up, “You mean that?”

He nodded. “Of course. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

Meg looked at the ground for a second, then back towards the campfire and took a deep breath. “You know, I think I’d sort of been hoping…with Nea, maybe I wouldn’t feel so alone. Or that maybe something could go right here, and that would be like a sign. But things never go right here, do they?” She turned to look at him. “And suddenly knowing Mom…I felt like with her being gone I would be alone. But that isn’t right. Nea’s still here, you’re here. All of you.” She smiled for a second, and then the smile faded. “Do you think that’ll matter, in the end? That we’ll really be okay?”

Dwight wasn’t sure. He knew he needed to say yes regardless, but did he really think so? Everything with the Wraith had seemed like such a huge deal only minutes ago, but…The Entity—this thing, this monster, it had taken them both out in the basement almost instantly. It could manipulate the world around them, their perceptions—maybe time. Even if they _could_ get the Wraith’s help, what would it matter against something like that?

“You’re supposed to say ‘yes,’ dummy,” said Meg, elbowing him gently.

“I was thinking,” apologized Dwight, snapping out of his internal monologue. “I know I’m supposed to say yes, but I did just promise not to lie. That kind of thing weighs on your conscience.” He adjusted his glasses, not because he needed to but because the action bought him another second to think, and he glanced at Meg. “I guess I’m not sure. I hope so, I think I think so. But I don’t know how yet.”

Meg nodded like that was an okay answer and she gave him a faint smile. “Well I do. I think we’ll all be okay. You’re too nice, and life can’t be that unfair. It’s already taken enough away from us. After everything, we have to be okay.”

“Yeah,” said Dwight, “you’re probably right.”

“Someday though,” Meg added, deflating a little, “Not now. Still, other things can be done,” she continued, regaining a little of her usual brightness, “For now, I think I’m going to go check on how the rest of us are doing. Congratulate and mercilessly mock the happy couple. Preferably with bad sex jokes.” She stood up and offered him a hand. “You want to come?”

“Soon,” said Dwight, taking the hand and shaking it instead of using her help to pull himself to his feet. “Got to finish something up first.”

“Okay,” said Meg. She turned to go, then paused and knelt down beside him, kissed him quick on the cheek, and turned to go. “You know, you’re alright Dwight Fairfield.”

“That’s what they tell me,” he replied with a smile, even though no one had ever said that to him before.

“Oh, and I heard you in the trial,” she added, backing away from him so she could keep easy eye contact while moving towards the campfire. “I’m onto you trying to talk to the Wraith. And I’m down to help, because fuck it, why not?”

“What?” asked Dwight, taken aback.

“No take-backs, you were way to obvious, and now you pay the price,” Meg replied, still backing away, “You just pop out from behind boxes in front of a killer like ‘Hey my name is Dwight what’s yours,’ and think I’m too dumb to put two and two together? Oh, also, Jake knows but he doesn’t want to help. I did tell him though.”

“Meg!” said Dwight in disbelief. “W-”

“Sorry dad!” Meg called, giving him a little solute, “I’m going to leave before you chew me out, but tell me the details later,” she added, turning and hurrying towards the campfire before he could protest.

 _Now I know how Claudette felt,_ Dwight thought ruefully. He watched Meg’s form fade for a few seconds. _Oh well. Maybe it’s for the best._

Dwight picked up his papers thoughtfully and looked over them again. _This isn’t going to be easy. No matter how well we plan, it’s going to be a lot fucking harder than we thought, isn’t it? And what if it is all just some kind of trap?_ He didn’t really believe that…No, not after seeing the Wraith protecting him firsthand. But…There was always the vague possibility. Even if it wasn’t something the Wraith was doing, but something the Entity was doing. Should he be trying to plan for that too? How would he even do that?

Try as he did to focus on plans and recording details, his mind kept slipping back to what Meg had said, and to his own mother. Muriel. He’d thought it was a dumb name when he was little, kind of like his own. Dwight was a really easy name for kids to come up with jabs to go along with when picking on you. Although, he couldn’t remember anymore why he’d felt that way about her name too. _Would I have stayed?_ he kept wondering, if he had been in Meg’s shoes? Would he have given up a future for his mom?

The fucked up thing was that he knew the answer, and the answer was no. I mean—if she’d asked him to, sure, probably. Who was going to tell their own mom to just die? But…if she had just gotten sick, and his dad had been busy, and he’d kind of known? Probably he would have just assumed it would work itself out—she’d pay someone to come over. _That’s not fucking true,_ Dwight told himself, _I would have cared. I’d have checked on her, and visited._

 _Would you?_ A little voice in his head kept asking. “Yes!” Dwight snapped aloud, hitting the side of the tree with a backhanded balled up fist. “Ow, fuck.”

 _I did love her—I do love her,_ Dwight told himself, _I wasn’t that shitty. I wasn’t._ Maybe. Maybe that was true, he conceded to himself after a minute, but did she know that? Dwight had wondered, of course—he was sure all of them had spent time thinking about what must have gone on with the people they left behind. He wondered then, though, how his parents had felt. If the people from his work retreat thought it was their fault he was dead, and they’d lied together to the police out of fear of some kind of manslaughter charges. He’d thought about this before, but he hadn’t wondered so much _how_ they remembered him. _I wonder if they thought I was alright? If anyone did?_

His mom had, though. She’d told him that at least, that she loved him and was proud of him—far too often and publicly for his comfort even into adulthood. He wondered though, if he’d ever given her a good reason to really believe all the things she said. That thought hurt.

“Hey, Dwight?”

Again. _Three in one day, God I hope this doesn’t develop into a pattern._ Dwight looked up at Feng Min and waved a hand in greeting.  “Feng. What’s up?”

“I wondered if you had a second to talk?” She asked cautiously, like she was already second-guessing her own decision to come ask.

“Yeah,” said Dwight, again setting down his papers. _I wasn’t going to get shit done anyway._ “Take a seat,” he added, gesturing to the ground beside him.

Feng sat beside him and turned to face him, straight to business. “Okay. You can’t repeat any of this.”

“I am a closed book,” he promised. _Fucking Fort Knox._

“Good. I need advice,” said Feng, “and you seemed like the best person to ask. Because David’s too macho, Ace is…well, Ace, Jake’s super weird, and I’m pretty sure Quentin’s never actually even gone on a date with his girlfriend.”

Dwight really hoped it didn’t show on his face that her comments on the selection process alone had left him well-informed he wasn’t going to be the best person to ask either. “Go on.”

“But first I need to ask you this: am I a shit person?” asked Feng, dead serious.

“What?” asked Dwight, taken aback. _Lot of self-esteem issues in this group tonight._ “No—why would you even ask that?” He thought for a second then. “I mean, yes you play hard in trials and sometimes leave people to bleed out so you can make it to the hatch—”

“—Okay, but—” she started to interrupt, but he held up a hand like he was trying to make peace and she let him continue.

“No, I get it—sometimes killers try to use us against each other. If I’ve got the Cannibal up my ass with a chainsaw hoping the only other person still alive will come try to save me so he can kill us both, I’m very okay with them sneaking off and escaping alone. I mean I don’t love dying, but I prefer that to making it a party event.”

“Right!” said Feng, “You get it.”

“Yeah,” continued Dwight, “I guess you’re also very motivated, so I get that you could have a reputation as kind of a hardass, but that doesn’t make you a bad person.”

“Okay, but,” Feng thought for a second, “I’m not as nice as a lot of you. You guys all make friends a lot easier, and I’m just not like that. I like being alone, and working alone—I mean other people are good sometimes, but I’m not…you know. I can’t be like Kate. Or Meg.”

“I mean, I’m not as nice as a lot of us,” replied Dwight. “And Jake’s like my best friend, but he’s also kind of an asshole. Trust me, you’re fine.”

“Then, if I’m okay right now, does it make me a shit person if I date Nea?” asked Feng, as if that was a commonsense natural progression to follow.

“I…Again. you’ve lost me,” said Dwight. “What does that even mean?”

Feng sighed and glanced towards the fire. It was a long way off—impossible to make out who was who, or even if they were really sitting or standing. Nothing but light and vague motion. “Look, Nea said she really likes me. And I told her I don’t feel the same way, but we’re still doing this…I mean, I do like her, but in like a hookup way, not in an ask you to marry me kind of way?” Feng explained, “And she said that was cool and she still wants to try, but, like. I mean, I do like her, and the sex—the sex is great.”

“Ahh,” said Dwight, “Okay, I-I don’t really need to know about all of that.”

“Fine,” Feng said unapologetically, “Point is, I think in the real world I’d be like ‘we shouldn’t do this, because I’d be taking advantage of you,’ but we’re not in the real world. We’re stuck. Here. In hell. And like, we’re both definitely happier because of having sex a lot, and that’s rare—and who’s it hurting? But.” She stopped and thought it over for a second. “I do care about her, and I don’t want to _hurt_ her. I don’t think I am, but if I’m mostly doing this because the sex is amazing, and I don’t like her like she likes me, is that super fucked up? Does that make me bad?”

She looked at him, and her expression were genuinely concerned. “Okay, let me think,” said Dwight, trying to process everything he’d just heard. “So, you do like her?”

Feng nodded.

“But not as much as she likes you?”

Feng made a face like she wasn’t sure that was quite right. “Maybe more like not in the same way. Or both…”

 “Okay. And you’ve been upfront about all this?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Feng.

“Well, first off, you aren’t a bad person,” said Dwight. “I don’t think a bad person would spend all this time agonizing over if banging someone they kind of like in hell makes them shitty.”

She gave a begrudging nod like he had a fair point but it wasn’t enough to make her feel good about this.

“Second,” continued Dwight, “You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s okay not to feel the same way about someone. You aren’t at fault for not having the same feelings. You’ve been upfront, you told her how it was, and she still wants to try dating. Both of you know how it is, and you’re happy right now. That’s a good thing, and you aren’t bad for enjoying it.”

“Even if I’m…Definitely not in love?” asked Feng hesitantly.

“Did she say she was in love with you?” asked Dwight, taken aback.

“No—no, that’s…that’s me being extreme,” answered Feng. “But. She said she likes me a lot. Like, very seriously.”

“Okay. Okay, well.” He thought for a second. “Are you sure you’re never going to feel more strongly about her than you do now? Ever?” asked Dwight.

“No,” she answered, “Of course not. But I don’t know that I will either.”

“That’s okay, then,” said Dwight, “People don’t all move at the same rate. Some of us fall into things, and some of us walk in slowly. Doesn’t make you any less good, or right. And if you don’t end up falling for her, that’s okay too. You told her you’d give it a shot, and she agreed to that. Both of you know how it is. Just give the relationship a fair chance, and be honest with her about how you feel—whether it’s closer to her romantically or not. She can take it.”

Feng thought that over and nodded. She looked back up at Dwight. “Yeah. I can do that. But that means I have another problem. Which is good, because I wasn’t sure this conversation would make it to the second problem. So here it is: if I’m dating her, what am I supposed to do?”

“What now?” asked Dwight.

“All I do with her right now is have sex, and I feel like that’s probably not the right way to go about this, so like…how do I be a good girlfriend?” asked Feng. “So long as it’s okay for me to do this, I think I do want to give us a shot—like a real one, but I’ve never done this before. So what do I do?”

“I am not sure why you came to me for advice on how to be a good _girlfriend,_ ” Dwight said slowly.

“Okay, well, how to be good _to_ a girlfriend then,” corrected Feng, annoyed, “Same thing. So, what did you do?”

 _Uh._ “Look. She likes you. You make her happy. Just, be decent to her. She wanted to date you because you were a good friend—don’t stop with that,” Dwight offered, thinking on his feet and working it out as he went. “There’s going to be stuff she’s into that doesn’t make sense to you or is boring, but let her talk about it anyway, because people talking about the shit that’s important to them is fun even when the shit itself is very confusing or boring. There’s also going to be stuff that you _do_ find interesting—so ask her about it. Let her tell you about stuff she cares about, and be there for her if she needs you. Make sure you do the same for yourself, too—if you all decide to be together, it ought to be because you’re stronger as a pair than alone.”

“So…” Feng considered that for a second. “Like before when we were just friends, but with sex?”

“Yes,” said Dwight, grabbing onto that reply like a life preserver and relieved she’d accepted all that without asking him for examples. “But maybe take it as a chance to get more out of that relationship too. We all need someone to talk to—with all the shit we go through here? Once we get out there isn’t going to be enough therapy in the world for even one of us. You all can be at least someone to talk to, though, for each other. Which is something. Oh—and please don’t ditch your other friends just because you’re together. I’d hate to see Jake lose so many of you at once,” he added.

Feng laughed. “Wouldn’t dream of that—he’s way to useful in a trial. And not annoying.”

“Perfect,” replied Dwight, “Then just do that, and also spend time together outside of sex. I know you guys teach each other skills—keep that up. I mean, if having sex makes you all happier, go for it, just find other stuff to do too. Share interests and have fun together. Nea’s an expert tagger—go spray paint your initials on a tree or something.”

“That actually would be fun,” admitted Feng. “I’d like that. Yeah…Thank you Dwight, I think I can do…at least most of that.”

“Welcome,” replied Dwight, standing up.

Feng took the cue and stood up herself beside him. “Okay. I’m going to go have a nice conversation with my girlfriend, I guess, and see how that goes.”

Dwight nodded. “Go for it.”

“I appreciate the advice. I knew you’d be the best guy to ask about girlfriends.” Feng smiled.

 _If so, only to the discredit of my fellow men,_ thought Dwight, but he just smiled back. “Of course. Heading back to the campfire?”

“Yeah. Things to do,” she replied. Dwight was really glad Meg wasn’t there to make a _Nea’s ‘things’_ joke, because he was certain he was going to hear a lot of them over the coming weeks.  

“Shall we?” He offered Feng an arm to take, and she laughed.

“Geeze Dwight,” she said, taking the arm, “Big dad move. No wonder everyone calls you that. But yes, you may professionally escort me back to the campfire.”

“Okay,” said Dwight, giving her a look, “I just did you like three favors, so can you be nice to me for at least the next twenty seconds?”

“I can, but I’m going to quite literally count them off in my head as we walk, and bets are off when I reach zero,” Feng replied, giving him a devious look.

“Wonderful,” said Dwight, “I will walk quickly then.”

Sketches tucked under his free arm, Dwight walked with Feng towards the campfire and their waiting friends. There was still a lot of planning to do, things to try and get done, but it was enough for one day. After all, there were people to look after and that came first. Time for monsters in the sky and lost memories later. For now, even he needed just a little peace. A little time together. It meant something important, if fleeting—a memory for when things got worse. A little feeling better.

Even if he knew it wouldn’t last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several events occur almost simultaneously, and I originally intended for the next chapter to be an upcoming one finally giving Ace some of his much deserved time, but the chronology felt a bit off, so here we are. The next two should be along fairly soon. I hope you enjoy some of Dwight trying to do his best. Thanks to everyone again for the continued support--all of you are the best, and I sincerely mean that.


	20. Deliverance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The path which brought Ace to the Entity's realm was a unique one. But how long can a man's luck hold out against something like the Entity? Or against a place like this?

 

Luck is an odd concept. For example, if while crossing the street you are almost hit by a car, are you lucky you were missed, or are you unlucky that you were nearly hit?

It’s entirely possible that luck is simply a concept that boils down to a glass-half-full, glass-half-empty mentality. But Ace Visconti would have argued otherwise.

His whole life, he’d been lucky. In ways. Although an objective viewer might argue the opposite, Ace held that it was a proven truth.

When he was young, his father worked full time as a custodian, and his mother struggled to make ends meet as a cleaner. Those jobs might sound synonymous, but trust me, they aren’t. A ‘custodian’ is a job with a title—sometimes a fancy word for ‘janitor,’ but it still implies some form of responsibility—you might be a gardener, or maybe you look after the floors, the lawn. Regardless, you are someone who has a title. A ‘cleaner’ is someone who pushes carts and enters hotel rooms one after another to clean them, who picks up the towels thrown onto the floor and starts wash cycle after cycle. It’s more of a description than a title, really, and the pay gap shows. Still, it was the best they could get. Since most of the people who could afford custodians and cleaners where they lived in Argentina were hotels, resorts, or casinos, those were most of the establishments his parents found their employ in. Sometimes they worked together, sometimes alone. They were always happy to work together, and had a game where, if they shared a job, they would try to pass one another in the halls. The first to smile at the other if they made eye-contact won a point, and at the end of the day, the person with the most points bought the other a drink, or a shave ice, or a soda. His mother would often carry a candy in her pocket to pass to her husband if they passed in the halls, and he would collect pretty stones and do the same for her with them.

As anyone who has ever been poor can tell you, it isn’t fun. Ace didn’t really mind, though, as a young boy, that money was tight and life was difficult—that was just normal. Children are often unaware of their situation. It wasn’t a tragic past. The birthdays were small, but the presents thoughtful, his parents always busy and exhausted, but kind. They taught him, indirectly, maybe his best skill—to find ways to cheat the system, to be happy despite his circumstances.

Still, his life of poverty did build a hunger in him. It wasn’t a fear of being poor exactly though, or a desire to be rich. It was more a question of what he could accomplish with nothing. When you’ve got nothing to start with, and you decide one day as a boy of eleven walking home with holes in the soles of your shoes and two coins you found on the edge of the street to give luck a go because _why not, it could be me,_ and life actually rewards you on the first slot spin with more money than you’ve ever held before? Well, you realize in that moment, blinking at the coins falling down on your head and the people patting your back and laughing about how some kid in one spin got what they’d been trying for all morning (and in a few cases, slipping a few of your precious earnings into their own pockets with a jovial front) that life is a little different than you knew it to be. You thought when you were little that it was nice and full of wonder, and then a bit older you realized it was more complicated, and some people just don’t get some things, but now you see those were both wrong. There are three big components to life—what you deserve, what you are actually given, and sometimes there’s this new third thing—what against all odds you luck into.

A little boy, he’d gathered as much of the money as he could—which was most of it—and run home to his parents, black hair falling into his face as he stumbled along, coins rolled up in the bottom half of his shirt and no free hand to get the hair out of the way and clear his vision. He was young, but even at eleven he’d noticed a few of the adults pocketing his new money and been sharp enough to know it was in his best interest to laugh and smile at them and not confront, just cut his losses, but it did dissuade him from his impulse to stop and buy a box of candies to take home. Ace arrived home well before the rest of his family, in the early afternoon, and dumped the little pile of money on the center of their kitchen table, then ran and got a wash towel to cover it with and waited for his family to get home. He got bored sitting at the table after a few minutes, and decided on his good-will high to tidy things up a little and decorate with some of the paperchains they kept in a drawer for holidays. While this was mostly initially to combat the several hours between him and his family arriving, he got kind of into it as he went on, humming along to the neighbor’s loud radio and hop-skip-jump-dancing about as he found things to do around the house. Many hours later, when his parents finally arrived, the house was celebratory and he had set up two candles beside the hidden pile of money. He met them at the door and dragged them inside excitedly, making them wait in front of the table and then removing the cloth with a flourish like a stage magician to reveal his goods, all grins and prestige.

His parents were astounded, and immediately afraid he’d either stolen it from someone, or accidentally got a job drug-running packages for the mob, but once he assuaged their fears they hugged him and gave thanks and his mother cried a little. It was a good night. One Ace would always remember.

It wasn’t big money. It wasn’t the huge slot payout—the life changer—but Ace got new shoes, and it was nice. A little padding for the family. His parents didn’t demand he give them the money—Ace volunteered it, but he kept a small container of the coins in secret for himself, because the memory of pulling that lever and being rained on with rewards was fresh, and new, and full of wonder.

After that day, Ace loved to gamble. He couldn’t stop—no…no maybe he just didn’t want to. There was hardly a difference. To be honest, some of the allure was the money and the high society he got better and better at faking his way into as he grew, but perhaps a bigger part of it was just that taking risks was fun. The payout and the happiness and the new things were lovely, but so was the thrill of feeling the coins wash over him in that first instant. When he was small, Ace stuck to slots. That first big win was probably the only money Ace won that he actually managed to _keep._ Not that he didn’t win—he did, he would just lose again, one way or another. Sometimes to an impulse buy, often to the same game, on occasion simply because he gave the money to someone else. But it never stayed with him. Still, there was no stopping Ace. After using up his supply from his first win, the young Ace would find coins on the street, beneath vending machines, earned by holding doors for tourists who didn’t realize he didn’t work at whatever establishment he conned them for change at. He used to sit on the edge of a high stone railing by one of the big casinos, bake in the sun, and eat bags of Bugles while waiting for tourists he thought made good marks to pose as a porter or a doorman to. As he got older, he found more easy jobs that he was suited to. For awhile he was quite the local tour guide, and he moved on to card games and roulette, races, competition—anything with dice.

Among his steadily growing skill set two of his big assets were that he genuinely liked most people, and that the man had no shame. People generally like people who like them first, if there’s nothing to cause a negative reaction, so Ace’s winning smile and smooth talking got him into plenty of parties, venues, and opportunities to bet. He wasn’t a bad looking young man either, or middle aged one as he grew, and he shamelessly flirted and seduced his way through plenty of disasters, going after anyone open to a medium-quality pick-up line, and down for something fun. When he was young, it was easy to insert himself into groups as arm candy for someone.

The first time it happened, Ace was trying to make it inside a casino he’d frequented before and had been grabbed by the collar by a doorman and thrown out for having won too much the previous night and being a suspected cheat. Barely twenty, Ace was pretty small, so he went several feet before hitting the ground. As he rolled to a stop on the mosaic tile walkway, heels clicked into view and he looked up to see a short older woman in her 50s looking down at him like he was an injured puppy. Her name had been Irene, and she’d helped him to his feet, and Ace had instantly had the impulse to act much more injured than he was. Cradling his lightly scraped arm like it was broken, he sucked up the woman’s sympathy like a sponge in a bathtub. She brushed his hair out his face and asked if he was okay, and he told her he would manage, and explained when she asked that the doorman had thrown him out because he’d won too much the last night and was unfairly suspected. She’d huffed at the bouncer and marched over to him and demanded that he allow Ace in to accompany her. He’d stayed securely behind her the whole time, doing his best to look small and innocent and awed, and the bouncer had relented at Irene’s fury and let them both past. Ace had thanked her, all doe-eyed, and she’d told him he could follower her around and be her good luck charm—even passed him a disgustingly large handful of cash with which to bet. Irene bought him a martini and a glass of gin, which she soaked her handkerchief in and used to clean his cut. He had dutifully followed her the rest of the evening, and she had won. Partway through the night, after an incredible high-stakes blackjack hand, she had turned to him in wonder and said, “You are a good luck charm.” He’d winked and leaned forward on the table and said for the first time something which came to be almost second nature to him as a response. “What can I say? I’m a lucky guy. Some of it was bound to rub off on you.”

His charm opened him new doorways, new chances. What was easy when he was young was really no more difficult as he aged. In fact, on some occasions as Ace aged, people would see him and assume he was bit richer than themselves, and they would be the one making a pass at being a night’s arm candy.

As he ricocheted around as a faux high roller, Ace thought of himself as lucky. He won a lot of games, he had some skill, and he was far from the life he’d started in. There wasn’t resentment in that, though, in humble beginnings. Although he never quite got his thumb on the pulse of _accumulating_ wealth, Ace always sent money or gifts home to his family in the rare times he was actually ahead financially.

The nature of luck being in question, at the very least no one could say that the cards did not favor Ace. That said, Ace wasn’t actually the best gambler. He was great at cards, but he was also what the casinos called “a perfect mark.” Despite being a bit of a bastard himself when it came to scamming, he was the sort of gambler who got so into his winning high that he could trounce the house round after round, and not have the good sense to pull out when he was ahead, then come back and do the same damn fool thing the next night.

Not too long went by before Ace started to become indebted to too many establishments, to too many people. They could never quite catch up to him though. Many a time some muscled thugs would break into his newest apartment, only to find it empty—bread still in the toaster, but him long gone.

Ace didn’t mind the close scrapes, because they never caught up with him. The only real downside to this lifestyle for Ace was that as he started to put himself in more and more danger, it meant it was less and less safe for him to see his family.

Once he got caught in an alley by a collector he chanced past at a bar who recognized him from over a year before. He ended up having a knife to his back and being casually escorted into a nearby alleyway. He was forty-two at the time, celebrating a birthday, and he did his best to keep smiling and to act friendly. _Deescalate, charm your way out._ It wasn’t like he wasn’t afraid, feeling a blade in the small of his back. He was terrified, but he was putting on a good face. Ace was proficient in that. The man who was about three times his size had shoved him up against a dirty brick wall and pinned him there by his throat, demanding to be paid, and Ace had promised. His usual charm hadn’t worked so well, and he’d ended up on the ground, feeling the man’s boot slam into his gut again and again as he tried to shield his head. A policeman had happened by then. Ace thanked the officer profusely and was more than cooperative in describing his fled assailant, who he had _no idea_ the identity of, or why he’d been targeted. The next morning, Ace was gone.

So with all of that in mind, here was the question. The big one. Was Ace really lucky?

Was he lucky that the officer had saved him back outside that bar, or unlucky to have entered the one bar that had a man looking to kill him inside it? Was he lucky that he’d won the slots as a boy, or unlucky that path had led him into running down dark streets one night and being swallowed up by a dark fog, landing him in something worse than the death he’d been fleeing would have been like?

Maybe luck is just a glass-half-full, glass-half-empty way of viewing life, and there is no answer to this question.

But Ace didn’t think so. Ace thought of it like this: he was poorly fated, and quite lucky.

Fate, as he saw it, was the things that happened to you. Luck, the way they turned out. Fate was being born poor, people nearly killing you in an alley; luck was the out he’d found in gambling, or a policeman walking past.

When he’d arrived in the Entity’s realm, it hadn’t been something he was equipped to deal with from his experience. Not that it really was for any of them, but for some of the kids it seemed to develop into a quick learning curve. Laurie and Quentin, for example, had had practice running from psychotic killers. Feng treated everything like a high-stakes videogame. Maybe, in theory, Ace could have tried to think of it like that—a high-stakes wager, but it was different for him.

He had been alone when he’d arrived, and the horrors of being chased down and hung from hooks had been incomprehensible. It was a commonplace occurrence for everyone now, but that didn’t mean the absolute unthinkable agony and terror of something like that went away. It was easy to say things like “being impaled on a meat hook and having a monster gut you and consume your essence is a horrifying and painful experience,” but it wasn’t something Ace really thought he would have ever been able to describe to someone if he got out and somehow found a way home. How could anyone begin to convey what it meant, to time after time be hunted down and killed like a fox being hounded for sport and pleasure, what it felt like to die? It was true that there were things you got accustomed to, in ways, but there are some things that just can’t really be…adapted to. It got easier, but there was no way to negate the fear of death, or the pain of having someone throw you to the ground and carve your insides out with a chainsaw, of being electrocuted and hallucinating until the energy friend your brain and burned you from the inside out. Ace had done his level best to face it positively. _Keep smiling, keep confident, you’ll luck into something._ Ace had been scared, of course, he hadn’t ever known any better than the rest of them if he had a chance of escape someday, but he’d weathered it by making himself believe he would. It had helped, even if it was a ridiculous notion that positivity could save you in a place like this. Telling himself he would live, again and again, that he would be lucky, became almost a mantra. He ran, and he struggled, and he hid, and when he saw others he tried to help them, and he clung stubbornly to his belief that he would survive. Belief, warranted or not, was the only thing no one, no matter the power, could take away from him. And probably it was silly, probably it was unwarranted faith. However, true to his words, it wasn’t long before he had lucked into something—only a few dozen trials. Then he bumped into Meg Thomas, working a gen, and he had been at a loss. He’d been at a loss because, well, he’d seen people before, helped a few of them, but never for more than an instant—never enough to really see them, to breathe, to think, and Ace had no real idea what the hell was going on—maybe one of the circles of hell or something, maybe something similar—and while he’d known there were others, this was the first time he got a good look at one, and she was just a kid.

A kid. God, so young. He almost hadn’t believed it, and it had made him hesitate to get closer for a second, like he might bring the danger with him. Meg had been something else, though—strong, and fast—much faster than him. He’d seen that, but he’d also seen her get thrown up on a hook, cut down by a blade. Ace had been through a decent amount in his adult life, but never before had he had to witness something like that—a young girl being tortured. It was a terrible feeling, watching some kid scream and writhe with pain as a piece of metal came tearing out of her chest, or monster sent a ripple of electricity through her body and beat her down with a studded metal pole.

And there was so little he could _fucking do_ about any of it. He tried—of course he tried. But this wasn’t like the real world, where you could intercede in a mugging on someone’s behalf, or punch a drunk man in the face. Sometimes the only real choice was if you were going to let someone die alone.

By some miracle, they had both made it out of that trial alive, the only two survivors, and she’d told him she had a group of other survivors she was staying and working with and he should come join them. Meg had been all friendly, offering a handshake, like he was being made partner in her Outrunning Killers firm.

He’d gone, because of course he had—who wanted to be alone in a place like this, or to leave someone else alone? When they arrived, to Ace’s surprise and internal dismay, the other survivors had all been kids. Jake was a little older than the other three, and maybe kids wasn’t _entirely_ accurate from their point of view, but when you’re in your mid-50s, everyone under 30 is a kid. There had only been four of them back then, Jake, Dwight, Claudette, and of course Meg. He’d been their fifth. Everything he’d been through, everything he’d endured in the short time he’d been in the fog, and these kids were going through it too. That thought was…difficult to stomach. All his life, keeping a positive spin on things had been something Ace had done to control his surroundings and how others perceived him, and for himself. A vastly effective survival technique, it was his life vest in an unsure sea of existence. For the first time though, suddenly he needed to be lucky and charming and full of faith in success for the good of other people. It had never felt like a flimsy shield before he had had to use it to protect someone else.

Ace had never had kids, and the sudden unexpected responsibility of being the oldest person in a situation as intense as this had been daunting, to say the least. To his _extensive_ relief, by the time he’d arrived Dwight had already somehow assumed the role of team dad, so he had been able to, thanking the lord silently in his head, slip into the much less stressful role of fun uncle to the group.

There was no earthly clue in Ace’s mind how to help a bunch of kids through the hell they were all suddenly enduring, but he’d done his damn best. Stay positive, talk to them about their lives between trials, do card tricks. It wasn’t something anybody would have been trained for, certainly not Ace. He’d liked all of them. Claudette was so quiet back then, when they’d first met—a little afraid of everything, even the sound of her own voice. He’d gotten to watch her get stronger, calmer and more prepared. He still remembered clearly one trial where he’d been stabbed deep through a side while, in desperation, jumping off the third story of a building on the MacMillian estate. Somehow the fall hadn’t killed him, and as he’d rolled off the haybale he’d hit covered in blood she’d come power-sliding in from god only knows what hiding spot to start trying to get him back up on his feet before the Trapper made it down the stairs, like some action movie battlefield medic.

They were incredibly resilient kids. Dwight did a great job of organizing and coordinating people. Meg liked to make fun of him and ignore his suggestions between trials, but when the pressure was on, it was good to have a leader. Meg herself was quite a character, somehow still deeply invested in cliffhangers she might never know the outcomes of in favorite tv shows from before her arrival. Kind of reminded him of himself, in ways—she kept finding things to smile about, and got the others to joke with her. She kept finding ways to make this unbearable existence feel normal between deaths and beatings. Jake was quiet, in an almost stern way—kept to himself. It had taken some time for him to warm to the others, but after a little time with the group Ace could tell Jake cared about the rest of them in his own way, more and more as time went on. He would probably never admit such things out loud, but Ace had been working on a generator with Jake maybe a few months after joining the group when they’d seen Dwight, injured, trying to outrun the Wraith nearby—he’d watched Jake’s knuckles go white as he gripped tools too tight, stealing glances towards the chase. He knew what a man praying for a good outcome on a roll of the dice looked like. Jake was always quiet about it, but Ace had seen him take a hit for Claudette, go back for Meg. It was a gradual thing, increasing with age. Maybe he was growing up. It seemed like all of them were having to learn how to do that—to decide who they were going to become.

Ace often wondered to himself how all of these kids had turned out to be so good. There had been others, then, as time went on. Nea, Feng, Quentin, David, Laurie, Kate. Slow, not all at once, like milestones marking their progress through the mist. Nea liked trouble, Feng was competitive to a fault, Quentin always tried his best, David was a fighter, Laurie a survivor, Kate never gave in, and Ace had liked all of them.

They were good luck. It was poor fate to end up in this place, for all of them, but it was good luck that they’d found each other. Good luck he’d been forced to try and take care of a bunch of kids. Good luck that they didn’t need him. Better still that they had each other anyway.

He thought about that a lot, but he wasn’t thinking about it now. There was the vague sound of David trying to explain to Jake a drinking game he’d never heard of before (and Ace new quite a lot of them), but Ace’s thoughts were mostly far of, and fixed on old memories. For no real reason at all, he was remembering a stray grey cat he’d been taking care of right before disappearing, and wondering if after he’d vanished it had gone to the bakery down the street for shelter. There was no real reason for this—he probably should have been focused on the strangeness of Dwight’s recent trial with the Wraith, or concern for Laurie, but he’d drifted. Sometimes he was driven to spend a long time remember little chunks of nothing at all from his old life, just to prove to himself that those memories were real too. He had always been the kind of person who could recall an old memory so well he might suddenly start laughing over a really funny one in public without warning, and embarrass his friends, but that was a great skill now. Ace was finally shaken from his reverie by the realization that his fingertips were starting to vanish. He dug a little packet of salt out of his pocket, got up, and dropped it in the campfire for luck, watching the others nearby to see who would be joining him. David stood and gave him a nod, walking over and burning a little packet of his own—herbs of some kind, by the smell. Not salt.

“Take ah bet on who the killer’ll be?” asked David.

It was nice to have David around. He was still significantly younger than Ace, but he was the closest thing to a fellow adult.

“Yeah, I’ll take that,” Ace agreed, smiling at David and resting his hands in his pockets as they began to vanish. “Nurse.”

“Doctor,” replied David, “Let’s keep our bets medical.”

“Done,” said Ace, taking one of his hands back out of his pocket and shaking David’s hand. They’d probably both be wrong and have to go to Dwight to settle whose guess was closer to the Killer they actually got.

They were gone then, in a little crackle of firelight. There was a sound like a fire consuming something, then Ace could see again and he was standing on the ground of Coldwind Farm. He looked to his left and was greeted almost as fast with the sight of a nasty little cage full of sharp metal and shards of glass with a little doll sitting on top and he grimaced. _Pig._

 _Well, at least she’s female, so I probably win the bet,_ he consoled himself. _Now let’s go sneak around and bring some light._ His casual smile was back as quick as he’d lost it, if a little false for the first few seconds, and Ace crouched, moving quietly towards the flickering lights of a generator a few yards off.

He slid into place by the generator and started to work as quietly as he could. _Easy does it. Don’t want to make this thing spark._ Ace mentally hummed a familiar jazz tune to steady his hands and kept a lookout over his shoulders, watching for the creeping figure he knew would come for them sooner or later.

A lot of them had favorite and least favorite killers to go up against. Generally that had to do with either the level of fear and pain they inflicted, or how easy they were to escape from. Ace wasn’t sure if he had a favorite or a least favorite at all, but if he’d had a favorite it wouldn’t have been the Pig. The reason wasn’t because she was fast or sneaky, it was because she was sadistic. It felt wrong to say that it was easier to watch your friends be murdered than to watch them be tortured, but it was true—at least for him. Only a matter of time before she found someone and the real fun began.

There was nothing though, and he got closer and closer to lighting his generator. That was actually not the best feeling. Usually by the time he was halfway to lighting a generator, he or someone else would have been jumped. But there was no blood-curdling scream, no sign any of them were in danger. It was unsettling for the silence to go on so long. If he hadn’t already had his proof it was the Pig, he would have begun to suspect it had to be the Wraith or the Shape.

A shriek came from behind him then, memorable as it was chilling, and as he let go of the generator and tried to move out of the way the Pig was upon him, her knife blade digging into his back. Ace screamed something that had been “Fucking hell” in his head, but came out as an unintelligible shout, and fell backwards. He had been _so careful,_ and somehow he still hadn’t seen her coming. As Ace hit the ground he turned, using his feet to fling the Pig off himself, dragged himself up and started to run, dropping a pallet and waiting to see if he could run her around a bit. She wasn’t having that, though, and smashed through the it the second he dropped it. _That’s fine,_ thought Ace, and he took off for some farm equipment. Behind him, the sound of the Pig’s presence disappeared. _Crouching to throw me off guard,_ thought Ace, not slowing down. Some of the Killers could do that—cloak their ambient horror aura, and she was one of the most skilled at it. He wasn’t _about_ to buy the bait that he’d actually lost her just yet.

Ace didn’t see whoever the Pig stopped chasing him to go after, but he heard a shout of pain and realized that he’d been wrong about her sneaking after him—she’d switched targets. He came to a stop then, bleeding by a baler.

Someone lit the generator he’d been working on. _Good on you, pal,_ thought Ace, wishing whoever had finished his work well, and also that he’d brought a medkit. _Damnit, I always remember to burn a sacrifice, but I never take my stuff. I always think I’ll want it later, and I just never use it. Guess I gotta find a chest I guess and hope for the best._ That or a friend.

There was a generator fairly nearby amidst the corn, and Ace, who had been planning to go hunt for a box, changed course and hoped for the best. He was lucky. The sounds of progress well underway greeted his ears as he stole over, and he saw David crouched by the generator, fingers moving steadily over gears and wires.

 _Perfect—that was entirely the best way this could have worked out for me._ A friend. Just seeing David instantly alleviated a little of the stress. On top of that, it looked like he was pretty close to finished with his own generator. Ace slipped closer.

Guard up, David saw him almost the moment he moved, and he stopped working on the generator and stole over, giving a sympathetic grimace at the knife wound in his back an carefully staunching the blood flow while Ace did his best not to make nose in response to the pain and both men listened for the Pig and whoever she was chasing. Neither of them heard her coming. Somehow, even though they were looking for it, she’d gotten close, using the generator and used it to block their view. Ace had a sudden feeling that all was not well, and no time to respond before she was out of cover with a shriek and on top of the both of them, raking David across the chest as he turned and tried to push Ace out of the way. Ignoring David, the Pig turned on Ace and leapt as he backpedaled, digging the knife into his shoulder. The stab wound was deep, and it carved into him in a way he knew from experience meant it had hit important things—things that were torn open from the twist of the knife and would fail and leave him to bleed out on the ground if he couldn’t find help. He fell back as it sunk into him, hitting the ground square on his back. The Pig landed on top of him and dug the blade in as far as it would go, grotesque masque inches from his face. There was a loud sound from David then, as he tore off through the cornfield, and the Pig let go of Ace and took off after David.

 _Time—he’s buying me time. Might be able to lose her,_ thought Ace, starting to try and drag himself forward by his elbows. His chest ached in a dull, tearing way with each movement, and they became harder and harder to make. _Horrifying, unpredictable, sadistic, ugly looking masked creep,_ thought Ace incoherently as his heart raced. There was a shout as David went down nearby. _No. Shit._ He could hear his friend struggling as she picked him up a few yards off, and Ace stopped moving, praying the rows of corn and the distance would make him hard to find. The thing was like an animal though—it could smell blood, and the steady swish of corn stalks brought the Pig back beside him in a matter of seconds, hauling David over her shoulder. She dropped him on the ground beside Ace and they were almost face to face for a second.

David was clutching his chest, almost at his collar, trying to slow the blood that was seeping through it. His face was a horrible grimace of pain, and his breathing was harsh and sharp as he tried to not sound injured. They knew the Pig—they knew she liked that—to hurt them and hear it. David was proud, and he was strong, and not about to give her the satisfaction she wanted, and Ace had been in enough trials with both of them to know that would just make her want to break him more. _Hang in there,_ Ace thought, trying to give him some kind of reassuring look in the few instants they met eyes, but David’s face was taught, like someone bracing for impact seconds before a collision—not going down without a fight, but no real hope of escape left either.

The Pig slammed a knee down into the small of David’s back then and he stifled a cry as she rolled him over so his face was pressed into the dirt. A wave of her hand and Ace saw one of the awful little torture devices appear in her grasp like she’d summoned it out of the ether, a steel cage with spikes that closed down around your head. Ready to snap you open in half, a reverse beartrap. David was working not to look at her—to not give her the satisfaction, blood seeping from his shoulder and into the dirt. Unrelenting, the Pig dug her fingers into David’s hair, jerked his head back hard, and forced the trap over his head. She went to shove part of the device inside his mouth and David fought madly, struggling with everything he had to keep the thing out of his mouth, but there was so little he could do. Her fingernails dug into his chin and there was a snap and a muffled sound from David as she pried open his jaw and forced the metal in, hooking the prongs deep into his jaw, and locking the cage shut in the back. Ace could see blood trailing down the side of David’s face. The thing functioned as a gag and a murder weapon, and the horror of knowing something was fastened around your head that could snap it in two at any moment was a kind of awful that was hard to imagine. Helplessness and fear, like being forced to the ground beneath a guillotine. He tried to make eye contact again, but the Pig moved between them and he lost sight of David.

Left on the ground wounded and unable to speak as the Pig turned her attention towards Ace, he could faintly hear David trying weakly to crawl away in the faint hope someone would come help him while the Pig was busy. Ace prayed someone would.

Not giving David a second thought, the Pig paused above Ace and looked down at him for a moment, any semblance of humanity gone behind the grotesque mask, and then she moved out of his field of view behind him and he felt her knee against his shoulder blades, hitting him right where she’d stabbed him earlier and applying pressure.  It was excruciating, and in spite of his best efforts a cry escaped him at the sudden, unbearable pain. Her fingers were dragging his head up by the hair then, and it was his turn to fight as the steel cage descended around his head and his mouth was forced open and sharp metal hooks were shoved inside and buried in his jaw, filling his mouth with blood he choked on. There was a snap as the reverse beartrap locked in place.

As soon as she finished, she dropped him, his head smacking against the cage as it hit the ground and he hit it, and the Pig left him for David, following his easy trail of blood through the corn. _I can take it,_ thought Ace, ignoring the little cut dripping blood in his left eye, _I’ve known one too many sadists before this shit. But David…_ He’d been kicked around in life enough to know that if you were still breathing when it was over and you could get back up, you’d won, but David was different. Taking it easy and convincing himself things would end up alright next time might work as a method for Ace, but David was a man who had spent his life tough—the kind of person who would fight his way through trouble, and even if he lost he’d have damn well made his point to his opponent along the way. Everyone here had their own coping strategies, some positive or promise that made it so you could get past the suffering and the loss and the hell you went through, and while most of them could still find ways to use their old techniques now, David’s just didn’t exist anymore. He was used to winning in exchange for having the guts and strength to fight—there’s a pride and a respect even to a well-lost fight. There was none of that here, in a place like this, and in a lot of ways the Pig was the one who forced that loss of control on them the most. “Hey!” Ace started, trying to shout after her and draw her back, but all the words in his long string of insults were impossible through the steel gag and all that he could manage was a muffled sound past the metal digging into his mouth. Somewhere deeper in the cornfield he heard the sounds of a struggle, and then a strangled scream as David went up on a hook.

“Heads up, this is gonna sting.” The voice was almost inaudible, and Ace had both never heard the speaker’s voice before, and not seen or heard anyone coming up from behind him. There was someone beside him though, someone that he couldn’t see—the cage around his head blocking out any peripheral vision. He tried to answer on impulse, forgetting too soon that he couldn’t with the steel prongs digging into his jaw. The attempt at speech turned into a choked sound of pain as Ace felt a needle slide into the cut on his back as the speaker began to close it with quick, if painful and tactless strokes. In the next moment that someone was pulling him to his feet, and for just an instant he was face to face with a man around his own age, a man he hadn’t seen before, wearing a uniform and a policeman’s badge on a chain around his throat.

“Get that thing off. I got him,” the man whispered, indicating David’s direction with his head.

Not waiting for agreement or disagreement or even for Ace to process the order, the policeman shoved him in the opposite direction the Pig had disappeared off to and got going himself. _Well that was nice of him,_ came his brain’s first delayed attempt at a coherent response to the situation, _Wait, who was that?_ There wasn’t really time to find out, though, so Ace turned and took off for the Jigsaw box he’d seen when he first arrived. _Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,_ he thought as he listened for any sings of being followed. A long time ago his first thought would have been to help David, but he’d learned at this point that doing anything hasty would just make it worse for all of them. It was smarter to leave and let the cop get David, because if Ace was off trying to remove his trap, then the Pig would have to choose between hunting him down, looking for fresh meat, and guarding David. Better odds for them all. _Got to think smart, play this smart. We can figure it all out._ Plus, the cop was right that he had to get the contraption off fast, for the good of everyone. He was going to have to hope for the best, though—there were always a lot of the traps around the trial grounds, and only one of them would have the right key inside.

Usually Ace would have thought it was odd that so much time had passed and another generator hadn’t been lit, but he knew why this time, and considered it a mercy. Nobody around the fire with him had been dragged in except David, which meant either Meg or Dwight was in here as their fourth, or that there were two strangers, and both of them were being unusually kind. See, the reverse beartraps were worse for them than a lot of traps the killers employed, because it forced everyone to make a hard choice. Either stop lighting generators and risk your own chances of escape, or light them and know you have blood on your hands. Lighting any generator was the _on_ switch that would automatically trigger the timer on the back of his reverse beartrap, and David’s. Two and a half minutes to get it off then, or their jaws would be ripped open, butchering their skulls. He had to get his off as soon as possible.

Ace got close to the box he’d first seen, and the one lit generator, and crouched—just in case. She might be looking for him. _At least if she is, it’ll make it easier for the cop to get David,_ Ace thought as he stole closer. He could just barely see David from here, a tiny shape across the cornfield. _What’s taking so long?_

Almost as he thought it, he saw the same man who had helped him appear, duck past some boxes, and take a quick dash to grab David and free him from the hook. David ran, and the cop crouched behind the boxes he’d used as cover before. There was a distant shriek and then Ace saw the Pig appear, chasing down David with a vengeance and running smack into a pallet the cop dropped from his hiding place as she tried to pass him, unaware. The shriek was one of fury this time, and the Pig forgot all about David and went after the man who was causing her so much trouble. He was fast, though, and she missed her first swing and he took off full-tilt. As she tore off after him, it only took seconds for them to be completely lost past some ruined walls.

 _Who is supercop? John McClane?_ wondered Ace as he stood and rushed the last few steps to the Jigsaw box. It would be great if there was actually time to find out, but there wasn’t. Ace faced the box in front of him and did his best to steel himself.

Trials with the Pig were their own kind of awful. Less immediate death, more slow torture. The jigsaw boxes were a part of this. Big things—about as tall as him. A metal hood on top and a sharp wire cage around the base. The hood had several holes for an arm to fit into, and there was a key hidden somewhere inside. Sometimes it would be the one you needed, most of the time it wouldn’t. If it was, a signal emitted from the back of the beartrap would release the catch on the key and give it to you, if not, you were shit out of luck and would have to repeat the slow, agonizing process again at a different box—usually while listening to the timer strapped to the back of your head countdown to zero. There were a whole handful of these traps scattered around the trial, and only one had the match to any specific trap. To even find out if the key inside a box was the correct key you had to dig through the trap blindly, and that was a lot worse than it sounded. Not because it left you exposed to the Pig, either.

 _Okay, not getting any easier, go on,_ thought Ace, and he carefully slid his left hand into the box and started to dig. Almost the second he began, a gentle prod from his fingertip sent a sharp pain down his arm as a piece of broken glass sliced it open. The whole inside of the hood was coated in layers of razor sharp, paper thin shards of glass, and you had to sift them as gingerly as possible to get at the key without slicing their hand open too badly. Too badly being the key phrase—there was no version of events where you walked away from a box uninjured. Sometimes there were other things to make it worse. Moving parts you had to dodge that would crush fingers or push them into the glass, razor wire, think blades of various lengths attached to the roof of the hood. The worst was occasionally there would be blades attached to the hole you had to rest your arm in to dig through the glass itself. As he moved his hand carefully, Ace could feel that that was the case this time. The circular razor all around the hole at his wrist nicked him and Ace sucked in a breath, let it half out, and held it, willing his arm to be as motionless as possible. If he didn’t go slow, he’d slit his own wrists on the armrest, but the longer he took the more sure it became that either the Pig would find him, or someone would light a generator and it’d be 60 seconds or die. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. _Could be the mantra of a Pig trial._

Digging a little faster, Ace’s finger pads sliced open at the familiar touch of the glass, and he fought the urge to move or jerk his hand away at the pain. _Not gonna cut my wrists just yet, thank you._ He thought as calmly as he could, trying again to find notes of a specific favorite jazz song in his head as he started to sift the glass carefully, praying for the key. _Come on baby, come on._ Shifting a pile of shards with his thumb, a piece of glass somehow got wedged upwards and caught him by surprise as it dug into the palm of his hand, deep, and he jerked away from the pain. Just a little—mercifully upwards, not down, but the blades in the arm rest dug deep into the top of his wrist and Ace bit down on his lip hard to combat the urge to jerk his hand away this time. Slowly, he calmed his breathing as he watched blood slide down the inside of the see-through mesh bottom of the Jigsaw box and pool in a metal bucket at its center. _So close. You got it, just a little more._

He started to move the glass again, listening as best he could to the world behind him while struggling to simultaneously focus on not cutting open his wrist or palm and finding the key. All at once his fingers found it—a key, and relief flooded him and a smile flickered across his face, but as he tried to grab it to take it out, its release didn’t trigger and the piece of metal stayed secured to the bottom of the box.

 _Fuck. Wrong one,_ he realized. _Okay, okay,_ he thought, trying to see the best in it, _but it’s only my first try._ The doll on top of the box laughed at him and he carefully withdrew his hand, cradling the mangled appendage for a second as his eyes took in tiny laceration after laceration. There were little cuts all over the hand, a deep gash in the palm, and his fingertips were just bits of torn, hanging flesh. _Better keep going._

He did. While he’d been trying to find a key, off in the distance someone had gone down and was up on a hook. He had half missed it, in his focus, and had no idea if it was the cop, or David again, or their last trial member. But there was a jigsaw box near the victim, so Ace stole closer, unsure if he was going to go for the box or the rescue first. _I’ll flip a coin,_ he thought, _heads the rescue, tails the box first._ As he got closer, though, he saw the policeman from before again, heading for the hook up on the hill at a sprint. _Damn, who is that guy?_ Ace wondered again like a bystander in an episode of MacGyver as the officer snatched the other person, who Ace couldn’t see well but was fairly sure wasn’t David, and took off again at a run, barely losing any momentum in the rescue. The rescued party took off in the opposite direction, and both were gone.

 _Box then, I guess. No rescue needed,_ Ace thought, moving to the box.

As he went through the agonizing process again, Ace tried to think over the objectives instead of the pain. _One generator done, probably some in progress people are holding back on for us. That might be the best idea, work as much on as many as possible, light them back-to-back once we get these things off._ The ugly doll on the box laughed at him again as he came up empty a second time. _Well shit,_ thought Ace, _At least I’m not on a time limit yet._

Another yell—close, way too close, a little to Ace’s left—came out of nowhere and he jumped. Quickly ducking behind some junk, Ace moved to get a better look, hoping the Pig hadn’t been close enough to hear the doll laugh. As he got closer, he realized it was the cop this time, finally downed, and his heart sunk a little. The Pig didn’t bother throwing a device on his head for some reason, she just picked him up and rammed him through a hook. Ace flinched reflexively as he heard the other man scream. She crouched and slid off the hill then, much to Ace’s horror right towards him.

 _Don’t freak out—she didn’t see you, she’s checking the Jigsaw box,_ Ace thought hurriedly. He shifted a little to the left to be further out of her line of sight and held his breath. The red-cloaked form slid past him. _Oh jeeze, oh thank God,_ thought Ace, sliding around the far side of his junk heap to be solidly away from her.

Up on the hook, the cop had seen him, and he very unobtrusively extended his fingers until his palm was facing Ace in a _wait_ gesture. Ace did, following the cop’s gaze back the way the Pig had gone. After a few seconds, the cop waved him closer with two fingers, and Ace booked it up the hill.

A generator went on.

Halfway through unhooking the other man, the cop and Ace were face to face when it happened, and both men turned their heads to look. There was a “Beep.” then a moment and another slow “beep” from the device screwed into Ace’s head. _Ah, fuck,_ thought Ace, setting the cop down.

“Get moving,” said the cop, staunching the flow of blood from his chest on his own, “I can patch myself up. You got two minutes.”

Ace nodded and swallowed, then turned and took off for the nearest Jigsaw box. _God, I hope David already got rid of his._

He made it down the hill booked it past low walls and trees until he was beside a third box. _Come on, how many fucking tries can it take,_ he thought desperately. Ace stuck his hand into the box slowly and winced as the already damaged nerve ends did their best to gently sort through the little shards of glass. _Calm down, won’t be a help,_ he told himself. _Third time’s the charm, I’m sure this one will be it._

Another generator lit in the distance. Made sense—anyone with one of these on their head was already screwed, so no point in holding back now. Ace couldn’t really blame whoever had lit the generator, either. Trials would come to a point where they couldn’t keep getting stalled by this, or it would mean everyone would end up dead. He knew that. It was always a tough decision. He’d seen people light generators while wearing reverse beartraps. Feng seemed to get some really specific, strong pleasure out of doing that. Like it was a great big “fuck you” to the Pig.

His fingers found a key amidst the glass and Ace prayed with everything in his heart that third time really would be the charm. It was. The key came free and Ace sliced open his wrist in his hurry to get the key to the back of the trap.

The metal behind his head unhooked and the cage came free and Ace dragged it over his head and out of his mouth and let it drop. Tasting metal and blood, and doing his best to hold pressure as he wrapped up the wrist he’d just mangled, Ace felt immense relief watch over him.

It was spoiled by a _crack!_ behind him as something snapped a twig, and Ace took off at full speed without even looking. He’d gone fifteen feet before he glanced over his shoulder and saw that it wasn’t the Pig. It was a surprised looking man holding up a hand in a “Wait” gesture, already beginning to lower the hand in the expectation Ace wasn’t coming back. _Whoops._

Ace stopped and turned around a little sheepishly and awkwardly jogged back. The man looked relieved, smiling for a second, and came to meet him halfway.

Two strangers in one day, and both adults, much to Ace’s surprise—finally. The cop was likely about his age, whereas this man was probably a little younger than him, but early 40s seemed like a reasonable guess. He was dressed formally, but a step down from a corporate businessman. Too comfortable and not cold enough for that. _Maybe a doctor,_ thought Ace, taking in the white coat.

As he knelt beside the other man, Ace took in the deep gash in his side and the blood running down the sides of his mouth. “Got yours off too,” whispered Ace, gesturing to the nearby Jigsaw box, “That’s good luck.” Gently, Ace removed a small cotton pad from his pocket and held it in place while his new friend held up his shirt so Ace could secure the dressing in place with a bandage.

“What are they?” asked the other man quietly. He seemed calm—controlled, but his eyes kept darting around, watching for trouble. Like the little grey cat he’d been taking care of in Sanremo. Vigilant even at rest.

“Never seen the Pig before?” asked Ace, feeling deeply sympathetic. _Buddy, I remember my first time with her, and it was shit. Tried to run through an exit gate with one of these things strapped to my head, and let me tell you that’s sure a one-time only mistake._

The man shook his head, freezing up for a second as birds across the cornfield took to the sky and another generator lit. Ace froze too—only for a moment, waiting for screams. Nothing yet, though, so he went back to fixing the man’s side.

“They activate when a generator is lit,” replied Ace, circling back to the man’s first question. “You get about two and a half minutes, unless something’s wrong.  If you don’t get it off in time, your head gets ripped open in half. The jaws—”

“—The metal hooks into the jaws to force your mouth open on command, like a spring-loaded car jack,” finished the man in a way that indicated he was thinking through it out loud, not interrupting because he already knew.

“Yeah,” agreed Ace, “Or a reverse beartrap.”

The man grimaced at that, his hand absently going up to trace the cut open edge of his mouth where the trap had been attached.

“You can’t walk out the exit with one on either,” added Ace, “it’ll activate on its own and kill you.”

“How do you get a key?” asked the man, slow and thoughtful with intent, like someone mentally prepping a battle strategy.

“You already got one off, didn’t you?” asked Ace, absolutely unprepared for that question.

He shook his head. “No. No, the…thing got distracted. A policeman. She was halfway through it, but she left me to chase him.”

“Wow, Supercop’s crazy,” replied Ace on instinct, again feeling a strong _who is he?_ he wanted answered more and more, “That guy saved me today too.” The man he was patching up gave him a slightly confused look. “Right, right,” continued Ace, “The reverse beartraps. To get one off, you have to go to these and dig around inside,” he indicated the Jigsaw box nearby with his head. “Only one has the right key though, and digging around for it will screw up your hand.”

Ace tied off the bandage and held out his own hand for the man to see, and the man gave it a glance and then a hasty double-take as the visual of the damage really sunk in.

“Jesus Christ,” whispered the man in the coat, “Well, thank you for the information. And the help,” he added, lowering his shirt back down over the bandage.

Ace could tell he had to be new here just from the way he was comfortable whispering. Even the smallest sound could give you away. And while sometimes, or on special occasions, they would talk to each other during trials, if a motion could suffice instead, it would. No good taking chances. _That’s rough,_ thought Ace, remembering his first trials, _Yeah, that’s hell._

The other man held out his hand and Ace awkwardly went for a handshake. The man in the coat looked down at the handshake like he had no idea what Ace had done that for, but shook his hand just the same.

“I, uh—I was reaching for the bandages. You’re bleeding as well,” he whispered as they shook hands.

 _Oh, right. I forgot about that._ Ace was so used to being in pain that the fear of having his head snap in two had far outweighed the stab wound in his chest. The cop had gotten the cut in his back and he’d been able to walk after that, so he’d pushed the rest of it to the back of his mind. Ace nodded sheepishly, handing over the bandages. The man took them and a needle and something that was maybe antiseptic out of his own pocked and doused Ace’s chest wound. _Yeah—ow—shit—yeah, that’s antiseptic. Oh geeze, can we get diseases? _

“Sorry,” the man said, voice barely audible, “Just a moment.”

As the man in the white coat worked, Ace heard a yell, and saw someone go up on a hook a little way past the cornfield. _Please don’t be David,_ he thought guiltily. Wishing him well meant hoping Supercop had gone down, and the man had saved him and apparently everyone else here at least once today. _I’m going to have to go help whoever it is, aren’t I?_

The other man finished his field dressing on the chest and did his best to bind Ace’s hand—which was excruciating, but did make him feel better because he no longer had to look at it.

“Do you know…” the man asked slowly, hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure he should. “Do you know why we’re here? Or…”

 _Right, very new,_ thought Ace, _Poor bastard._ “Not exactly,” Ace replied, watching him wind the bandages around his chewed-up fingertips, “It gets easier though.”

The man in the coat gave him a look like he didn’t quite believe this was a thing that _could_ get easier. In a lot of ways that was true. Some of it got easier, sure, but some of it got worse. It wore you down. “Does anything ever change?” the man asked after a second. There was always a pause before he spoke, like he was carefully selecting his words, and Ace realized suddenly that this was because he wasn’t sure how many questions he was going to get to ask. He wondered how many times he’d been in trials with someone and gotten to speak to them only for a second, only to lose them, or to die himself. This might be the longest chance he’d had. It hadn’t been until Ace himself had met Meg Thomas that he’d exchanged more than a few words with anyone, although he’d tried at first, before he realized how sharp the ears of the things in the fog were. That had quickly beaten the impulse to communicate with others out of him. Well, it nearly had.

“Aside from the killer?” replied Ace, “Not really. Sometimes it goes better, sometimes worse. We keep trying, but even if we get a win, we’re still stuck overall. Think of it like _Gilligan’s Island,_ but every episode gets its plot from _Friday the 13 th._”

The face the man in the coat made said he didn’t love that. He finished on the bandage and stood up, motioning to a generator near the two of them. Ace shook his head and pointed to the man on the hook across the field.

The man in the coat looked tired, or maybe sad—disappointed, but he nodded back.

“Best of luck, Professor,” Ace whispered, turning to slip away through the corn.

Behind him, the man in the coat started to say something in reply, then he just shook his head and smiled—just for an instant—and gave a tiny wave as Ace disappeared.

Moving through the field, Ace did his best to move as quietly as possible. When he made it closer to the hook, he could see it was David, reverse beartrap still attached, and his heart sunk.

It was an awful sight, but one he was as used to as he could be. The metal digging through David’s shoulder, wounded all over, arms battered and bruised from trying to fight back the thing that was attempting to kill him. No, the reason his heart sunk was the reverse beartrap. They’d been trapped together, and Ace had had maybe a minute left when he got his trap off. If his was still on, it meant David’s had to be close to triggering. The timers on the back stopped if you were up on a hook, but the second he took him down, David would…

The nearest Jigsaw box was only a few yards—maybe he could still get free. _I have no way of knowing which one has his key though, or which ones he’s already tried. Or how much time he had left._ Ace hesitated.

Blood dripped from the corners of David’s mouth where the reverse beartrap had been forced in, and there were two long gashes across his chest, destroying his Rugby shirt, and a third wound—a deep wound, right in his gut. She’d sliced him open, and a little piece of his intestine was hanging out though the wound. The talons of the Entity were around him, and he was struggling to keep them from tearing him apart, but there wasn’t any hope in his face. Ace knew that expression well. Someone past thinking through damned if you do, damned if you don’t, who just knew they were fucked.

 _I can’t leave him though. I need to do something._ Ace slid out into the open, into David’s line of sight, and the two men met eyes. For a second, David looked almost glad to see him, then almost ashamed that again he’d been reduced to this. Trials were always hard on David. He was the kind of person who wanted so badly to protect people, and he used to be able to. It wasn’t easy for him to run and hide, and that meant that usually he did manage to block a hit or two for someone, but the world repaid him by leaving him to die on a hook, leaking blood and stomach acid, often near the dead body of the person he’d been trying to save. Ace took a step forward, worried look up at the reverse beartrap, and David shook his head.

He couldn’t tell Ace what he meant through the gag, but it was clear. No way out. Better to die on the hook than from the trap. Ace couldn’t blame him. Slowly, Ace nodded in understanding, then he walked closer, holding up a hand when he saw a warning look on David’s face which meant if he tried to interfere David would let go and let himself die to keep from being taken off the hook. David hesitated, then obeyed, holding the Entity back as best he could, and gave Ace a questioning look.

Both of David’s hands were being used to keep a claw poised above his chest at bay, but Ace moved up right below the hook, ducking to be out of the way of the talons, and put his hand on the back of one of David’s hands, then looked up at David, giving his best reassuring smile.

David understood then, and Ace could see some relief in his eyes. He took a breath, then he let go of the claw and took Ace’s hand, gripping it tight, and the instant he did the claw hooked forward and dug into David’s ribcage, shattering bones and impaling him clean through, giving him just enough time to yell in muffled agony through the steel gag before it killed him. Ace felt the strength of the grip that had been almost crushing his fingers go out of the hand as David’s eyes shut. Gently, Ace let David’s fingers slide through his own as the body was lifted upwards into the blackness above that served as their sky. _I’m sorry kid,_ thought Ace, _you always deserve better than you get._

Maybe she had been watching and waiting—hoping he’d take David down and let the reverse beartrap do its work, maybe she’d only just arrived. Either way, Ace did hear the Pig behind him this time, crawling up through the grass, breathing a little too excited. He knew she was there, but there was nowhere for him to go. Walls around him, except towards her—he was boxed in. Still, Ace tried anyway, spinning on his heel and going for a dash past her, and he almost made it, but her blade caught him in the side and he stumbled, barely dodging a second swipe from her as he regained his balance and ran for the cornfield. _Come on, you aren’t that old, get faster!_ He did his best, trying to move unpredictably through the tall corn, when suddenly he couldn’t hear her anymore. _Keep running in case she’s sneaking, or go still incase she’s lost you?_ Ace froze and crouched, praying the corn would hide him. _Where did she go?_ He turned and looked around, and there was nothing, not even motion in the corn. Ace started to move then, crouched low to the ground and as quietly as possible, heading towards the edge of the cornfield. He was about halfway when behind him there was a rustle, ever so slightly, and he turned to look and there she was, crouched not six feet away. The second he saw her, she sprung on him like a loaded gun firing, and the force knocked him backwards to the ground. Her blade caught him in the chest, and she was on him again, straddling his waist, reverse beartrap in hand. As the cage came towards his face, he saw it was different, rusty spikes attached along the metal prongs, and as she shoved it into his mouth he felt the spiked tips dig into the roof of his mouth and his tongue and carve little trails of blood and serrated flesh. There was a snap of the trap as it locked behind his head.

Trying to ignore the screaming pain in his mouth, Ace struggled against her as she lifted him towards a hook. A generator went off, and she heard him make a sound almost like a laugh under her breath.

 _That’s five,_ realized Ace, _That’s all of them—why is she happy?_ He didn’t like that question.

She got close to the hook she’d been gunning for, and there was the cop, blocking her way. _Oh thank God,_ thought Ace, _I’m going to send this man a fruit basket._ He redoubled his efforts to break free. The Pig swung at the cop and he easily dodged her, slowed down by Ace, and suddenly Ace was free. She let go of him and he landed on his feet and watched in amazement as she let out a scream and lunged at the cop, who took the hit in his arm and sprinted off, her hot on his tail.

 _Damn he’s good,_ thought Ace, watching the cop disappear, dumbfounded. A loud “beep,” from the reverse beartrap sprung him back into action. _Oh yeah—fucking shit!_ Ace took off for the closest Jigsaw box.

The box was close to one of the huge metal exit doors—so much the better, right? Ace moved quickly, grimacing as he watched the glass tear away the bandages that had only just been so carefully applied. There was a scream from near the exit, and Ace feverishly tried to speed up. He was so close, if he gave up now he’d have lost so much time. _Got it!_ The key—he’d found it. As he tried to grab it the doll on top of the box laughed and the truth sunk in. _Oh darn._

The Pig was there then, rounding a row of little wooden walls. Hearing the doll laugh, she’d dropped whoever she’d had before, and her black, empty eyes met his and he could sense the smile underneath.

Ace jerked his hand free from the Jigsaw box, losing a huge chunk of skin in the process, and ran.

Leaping over farm implements and weaving through corn and trees, Ace was halfway to the barn when she gave up and turned back for her original prey. Once he was sure she was really gone, Ace took shelter behind a large boulder to catch his breath and surveyed the remaining Jigsaw boxes. He chose one on the left, far away from where he’d started, and ran for it, hoping the Pig was still occupied, and that whoever she was after made it out. He reached the box and slid his arm in, only now noticing how deeply he’d cut it. _A problem for tomorrow’s Ace._ He sifted through the glass as fast as he could stand, until finally his fingers found the key. Again, still bolted to the base of the trap. _Fuck!_

He ran for a third box, close to the barn, and tried again. _Come on, come on._ The beeping from the reverse beartrap was getting faster, more frantic. Something moved behind him and Ace froze. _Are you kidding? Again? How fast is she?_ He started to slowly remove his hand, hoping she wouldn’t realize he was onto her before it was free, and tried to get a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. It wasn’t the Pig. It was the man from before, with the white coat—the man who’d reminded him of the Professor from _Gilligan’s Island_. A reverse beartrap was securely fastened to his own head, and Ace could see he was scared. _Yeah. I’m scared too,_ thought Ace, giving the man a reassuring smile on impulse—forgetting there was no way the stranger would be able to read his facial expression well with the reverse beartrap on his head.

Turning away from the Professor, Ace slid his hand back inside the trap and continued to dig. _Come, come on baby,_ his fingers found the key, but it wouldn’t budge. _That’s okay—that’s okay, I have some time left,_ Ace told himself, sliding his hand out. The man in the coat had moved up beside him, and he looked at Ace questioningly, hand poised by the armrest. Ace nodded at him, and the Professor slowly slid his arm inside.

“Careful,” Ace started to whisper, hoping to warn him about the razors surrounding the armrest, but the metal spikes sent shockwaves of pain down his tongue when he tried and all that came out was a muffled attempt at words and sounds of pain.

The other man paused to look at him, worried it was a warning, but Ace just shook his head and motioned for the man to continue. He saw him winces and jerk his hand as he must have started to sift the glass, and a muffled cry of pain came out as the motion cut his arm. Ace put his hand on the Professor’s shoulder and tried to steady him. Trying his best to reassure him, and to convey the sensation that the first time was the worst. That wasn’t really true though—second time was.

 _I can’t stay,_ thought Ace nervously as the beeping increased, _I have to try another._ There were two left, one far across the farm, by one of the machines. The other was closer, but still a long way off—near a shed. Ace mentally flipped a coin. _Shed it is._

Ace moved back into the Professor’s line of sight and hurriedly pointed to the Jigsaw box he was going to try. The Professor followed his motion and nodded, then re-focused on the trap. Ace could tell from the way he kept wincing that he was digging through the glass to fast. Deep red blood was draining down the inside of the barred metal base of the container and mixing with his own at the bottom. _Why?_ wondered Ace, _For fun? Is us being dead not good enough, it’s only fun if you can see the piles of blood neatly stacked up too? That’s some fucked up stuff to be into, and not in a remotely good way._

There wasn’t time for him to stop and help walk the Professor through it though. His timer had over half of its span left, but Ace’s was speeding up at an alarming rate. Ace ran for the shed, but he’d only gone about six steps when he heard the ambient terror of the Pig getting close. _Of fuck._ He looked back and saw that the Professor had heard it too. He was digging through the Jigsaw box with the frantic speed of someone with two seconds left on fixing a generator and ready to sacrifice a punctured lung for success. One second, another half, and the Professor pulled his hand out of the trap too fast and ran for a thick tree a few feet in the opposite direction Ace had taken.

Positioned behind a boulder himself, Ace saw the Pig then—coming at him fast from the direction of the shed, and right on the policeman’s heels. He’d been wounded in the leg, and it was slowing him, but he wasn’t giving up. _Oh shit, they’re going to run right over me,_ Ace realized, calculating their trajectory with a sinking heart. _Welp. Not if I can help it._ He made a mad dash over to where the Professor was crouched and baseball slid into cover beside him, both men breathing fast and shallow as they watched.

Dodging and weaving too slow now, the cop didn’t quite make the Jigsaw box before the Pig lunged and slashed him deep in the back. He fell forward, hitting the ground hard, and the Pig took slow, meticulous care cleaning his blood off her blade as she stood over him.

With an unstoppable dedication to each movement, the Pig dug her fingernails into his forehead and wrenched his head back, summoning one of her reverse beartraps and forcing it around his head and into his mouth. She kicked him over so he was on his back and drew her blade. _Oh no,_ thought Ace, realizing what was about to happen. He was faintly aware of the Professor at his side, wide eyes fixed on the scene before them. He started to move, to go help, but Ace help up a hand to stop him and shook his head. _It’s too late. You won’t make it in time,_ he thought. Several yards between them, and she was fast. The other man stopped, but he looked from Ace to the cop, torn. _I know, it feels shitty. Like you’re just leaving someone to die._

She swung, and to cop managed to catch the blade. Leaning into the motion, the pig twisted the knife, and they heard him scream through the metal digging into his jaw as she left a gaping hole where the center of his hand had been. With deft movements and unrelenting force, the Pig placed the soles of her boots on his arms and pinned them down, and with one quick swipe she slit his throat. It didn’t kill him instantly, and his body convulsed as the blood spilled out over his chest, then he was gone.

She hadn’t had to put the trap on him. That was what stuck with Ace. The second she’d taken him down she had known she was going to kill him, so she’d just put that thing on him for fun. To prove how powerless he was to stop her. That in spite of all the times he’d managed to run her around, the number of people he’d rescued from hooks or patched up, it had still ended like this.

Beside him, Ace heard the Professor’s breath catch as the policeman died. _I wonder if this is the first time you’ve seen someone truly killed in one of these,_ thought Ace, looking at the other man’s expression. He’d expected him to look horrified, and he did, but more than that he looked pained. _I wish I could tell you it isn’t permanent, like everything here,_ thought Ace.

 _Wait, maybe I can._ Ace touched the other man’s shoulder and when he turned to look, he pointed to the cop and made first an O, and then his best attempt at a K with his fingers. The Professor gave him a deeply confused look, although Ace couldn’t be sure if that was because he didn’t understand, or because he wasn’t sure why Ace was telling him a dead body was okay. Ace gave up on that, and his focus returned to the beeping coming from the reverse beartrap on his head. It was getting faster and faster. Very little time left.

A few yards off, the Pig turned away from her kill and crouched, creeping back off towards the shed. In a few seconds she was gone.

 _Guess not the shed,_ thought Ace, and he stood, quickly pointed the Professor in the direction of the closest Jigsaw box, the second one he’d tried and took off for the far one, praying he’d reach it in time.

When Ace reached the Jigsaw box, his timer was frantic. _I can’t do it with this arm again,_ thought Ace, not out of dread but realization, _All my nerve endings are shot._ Too desperate to fear the pain, Ace stuck his arm in and dug frantically, doing his best to be quick and not make it worse for himself. _No panicking. Just sift through the glass. You have a 50-50 shot, and you’re a damn lucky man. It’ll be there._

The glass stung and blood ran down the inside of the Jigsaw box, spattering the edge of the bucket as the frantic beeping got faster and faster. _Thirty seconds._ Ace’s fingers found the key.

It wasn’t his.

Ace swallowed, and pulled his hand out carefully, looking far, far across the farm towards where he knew the last box was. _Twenty-five seconds._

Wounded and dripping blood. Maybe, if he were Meg, he could have made the box, but even then, all he would do is reach it.

That sunk in. Twenty-two seconds and he was dead. Ace had been killed by a reverse beartrap before. It was a sensation that was hard to describe, hard to imagine, impossible to forget. The feeling of ripping, tearing open, the pain, the crack and snap inside your own skull you just had time to think you heard, the force of the blow. The skin around the jaws tore first, splitting the sides of your mouth, then your jaws tore apart and your skull shattered upwards and you were gone, nothing but a hole of blood and gore and tissue and teeth where they shouldn’t have been left of a face. He couldn’t stop it.

Without really thinking of doing it, Ace sat down. Still, in the grass near a tree. “I hear the crystal raindrops fall on the window down the hall, and it becomes the morning dew,” Ace sung under his breath, the same Grover Washington song he’d been singing in his head all day.

Beyond him a little ways, there was a sound in the cornfield then, and as Ace looked, wondering if he would rather die by the Pig’s hand than the trap, he saw not the Pig, but the Professor dash out of the field, his own trap still attached.

Seeing Ace sitting on the ground a few feet from the box, the Professor stopped and looked at him in surprise and concern. His eyes darted from Ace to the Jigsaw box, questioning.

Ace shook his head and tapped the timer on the back. _Fifteen seconds._

The moment the Professor understood was apparent on his face. It fell, pained, and he moved towards Ace and knelt.

_Ten seconds._

Ace pointed at the Jigsaw box the Professor had come for. He could still hear the Professor’s own timer going. Maybe a minute left, and ten seconds was a lot to lose when you only had sixty.

The Professor nodded and tapped his wrist as if there were a watch there and held up a finger. _I’ll wait._

He reached out and took Ace’s arm then, gripping it just above the elbow. Ace couldn’t see much of his face past the reverse beartrap, but he could tell from his eyes that he was trying to smile at him.

 _You’re going to stay with me, so I don’t die alone,_ Ace thought, _Huh. I wish I’d asked your name._

He reached out and took the Professor’s arm holding on like men trying to pull the other up from a ledge. It felt safe.

_Five seconds._

Ace had never thought of himself as someone who needed help, or was unfortunate. A thousand years ago in another life, he’d thought Irene was foolish for looking down at him like a lost puppy and taking him under her wing. But maybe she’d been right all these years. Back then he’d been so young, just twenty. Just been a little too young to understand what it meant to be young, or alone. Watching these kids facing death again and again like they were bound to find a lucky streak eventually, he’d finally started to understand why she’d helped him back then. Even if she was a fool, even if he might have been playing her for one, he’d been a dumb kid without a lick of power or good sense, and she’d been able to help, even if just once. He’d been the fool. She’d been kind. Making a small gesture in a big, empty, wonderful world. Just in case it mattered.

 _What a damn fine thought._ Ace looked into the Professor’s eyes and prayed the man would be able to forget what he was about to see, and that a little of his luck really would pass onto someone else. Infinitely glad not to be alone. _You know,_ thought Ace as he gripped the arm of a friend he hadn’t known an hour ago and smiled a real smile as the timer hit one, _I really am incredibly lucky._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, this chapter finally beats out Running on Empty as the longest chapter to date. Part of what I really like about the game is how much attention and love each of the characters gets, and how equal the survivors are in-game when it comes to importance. (Big fan of ensemble casts). With this story, it's always been really necessary to me to tell this, as much as I can, from everyone's perspectives, since it's a story that belongs to all of them. Ace specifically has always been a very unique character, with his age, positive attitude, and luck-based skills, but he's also the one with the least specific detail in his cannon-released backstory (currently), which is a real shame. It's horrifying to imagine what it would be like to go through anyone's experiences in the fog, but being the only proper adult in the group for a long, long time, I think Ace's experience would, in some really unpleasant ways, be entirely different from the younger survivors. For everyone though, it really would be hell. 
> 
> Merry Christmas/a lovely holiday season to you all! Apologies it didn't end up being a more festive chapter that ended up being ready today, but I hope you enjoy it just the same. Again, I am so deeply grateful for the feedback and support I've gotten from you all, and I hope you all have a wonderful remained of the year.


	21. Square One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A record of progress as Kate, Claudette, Dwight, Meg, and Quentin begin their attempts to befriend the Wraith.

 

I used to have something like a journal when I was little. It’d be full of real silly things, like jokes I heard, or pictures I drew, thoughts I had on whatever show was comin’ on PBS or Cartoon Network right then. When I got older, I started to use them for memories. Little things, not what I think of as I guess “real” journals—like they were on those shows, “Dear Diary, today I did this.” Often, especially as I got older, my records of the days would just be snapshots along with a few names and a location, sometimes pressed flowers, or a feather, a ticket stub—I guess that makes it a scrapbook instead of journal, huh? That was never how I thought of it though. Almost like just a record, more than anything. Then of course I had another journal. One for writing lyrics, and the notes of a melody line. But then, more often than not the two intertwined. I’d start writing in my head looking at a snapshot, or the name of a place. Hurry to open my second journal, the one I always tried to keep in a jacket pocket. Small, leather bound. Just a continuation of the real memory. Snapshot made it permanent, the song gave it a second life.

Haha, damn that’s some flowery stuff I just wrote. I kinda like it though. It’s how I feel, so it’s got truth to it. I guess I should be sorry to anybody else reading this, but I’m not because why are you reading it? It’s my journal. I clearly marked the new one for group use as “Field Journal” on the cover. Anyhow, I have been doing some of those old journaling habits in this journal ever since I got here—pressing flowers, writing lyrics, sketching since I don’t have a camera to remember my friends with.

Starting today I’ll probably be writing in here a little less often. Books and blank pages are hard to come by, but Claudette has a reliable method for getting pages from autohaven, and so with her help I’ve been able to make a new journal. A “Field Journal” for all of us to use. That is, Dwight, Claudette, Quentin, Meg and myself. We’ve decided we’re all gonna try and talk to the Wraith, see if we can’t get through to him. That journal is gonna be different. A log, for us to record how things go in trials and share ideas without having to sneak off into the woods together all the time. Allows for _slightly_ less suspicion from everyone else. (Although, if I’m honest, it’d be kinda nice if everyone _did_ notice and we could make this thing a group effort. I get why not, though. I heard Meg already talked to Jake and he was a hard pass.)

So, Kate Denson, promising to write again in here, but maybe the last entry for a bit. I wish us all the best of luck with the Wraith.

 

* * *

 

 

Field Journal.

Day 1, Entry 1

Okay everyone, we have semi-limited page space, so keep that in mind best you can. This is here so we can work though our…I guess “action plan”? As we attempt to befriend the Wraith (I could say "make contact with" to sound more official, but let’s be honest. We’re trying to make friends. Also, I think we all know Meg would any overly-official sound’n language as an excuse to impersonate a federal agent in every one of her field entries. This is _definitely_ not a suggestion for you to do that, Meg. ; ).

All of us will be updating here to record notes on how our attempts to talk with the Wraith go. Let’s hope it goes well.

-Kate Denson

 

Wait, so am I being asked to do the FBI thing? Is this an audience request?

-Meg Thomas

p.s. I was in a trial with the Hag and I have no Wraith reports, but I have a couple of thoughts on other things. I don’t want to do a full entry until the FBI question is answered, though.

 

Meg, it doesn’t matter what you do so long as you include useful information.

-Dwight

 

Dwight, please don’t tell her to do whatever she wants. She came up to me in a trial and told me she’s going to start reenacting and filming vines on her phone for Laurie, since Laurie’s never gotten to see vines, and to ask me did I think we could convince the Wraith to play the serial killer in the one where someone’s hiding in a closet from a serial killer and the killer says “Red Robin” and the victim pops out of the closet to say “yum?” Please, please stop giving her free reign. Do you have any idea how hard it is not to laugh when someone says that to you while you’re working on a generator and the mental image pops into your head? I got stabbed and almost died…

-Claudette Morel

 

Sorry mom…. : (

-Meg

 

I’m not your mother! We’re the same age!! : ( ( (

-Claudette Morel

 

Welcome to my life….

-Dwight

 

I don’t know what I expected.

-Kate Denson

 

So, I guess I don’t know if we’re still doing this? But I was in a trial with the Wraith. It was me, Feng, Nea, and Ace. He did go after people for real, not like the recent trials where it’s mostly been easy. He somehow got Feng really fast (I know, right? That almost never happens to her.) I told Nea I’d run interference for her while she got Feng, because it was a good plan and gave me a chance to try and talk to the Wraith, so I made a lot of noise to draw him out. It worked. I ran and got some boxes between us and tried asking him not to kill me and telling him we knew he was better than this and something was going on. That did not work… Ace got me free and I found the Wraith again, chasing Feng down as she was trying to free Nea from a hook, and got in between them and put my hands up and asked him to please let her go because she’d just started dating Nea and she just wanted to help her girlfriend, and that also didn’t work and I ended up sacrificed, but he did look extremely confused the second time, and I think Feng and Nea got away, so that’s something, right?

\--Quentin

 

Good work! At least we know he’s back in rotation. I’ll go ahead and add that Quentin and I talked about this outside of the journal, and the Wraith didn’t look much different, but he thinks there were some arm scars that weren’t there before. I know Kate and Meg have already heard this, but Claudette hasn’t, and I’d just like to remind everyone to keep an eye out and try to confirm that during a trial with him.

-Dwight

 

Damn. CSI up in here. I like it. I was not in a trial with the Wraith yet. I was in one with the Clown…he ate my finger. : (

-Meg

 

I was in a trial with the Wraith finally. The arm scars Quentin noticed are definitely new. They look like burns to me. David, Meg, and a man I hadn’t seen before were in the trial. Kate’s met him—she says his name is David, and that he’s a policeman. He was really nice, but I think he thinks I’m crazy now…

Well, anyway, we were in the trial and Meg and I bumped into each other right after it began, and got lucky and saw the Wraith before he found anyone. I’ve been bringing stuff for this scenario into every trial just in case, instead of the useful things I usually bring, and it finally paid off! So, Meg and I ran up to him and I sort of similar to Quentin’s attempt tried to do a “Hold on, we’re friendly—please don’t attack us” thing and he uncloaked and attacked me and it didn’t work at all, but I didn’t run away either, I just kept trying to talk to him, and I told him my name and asked him what his was, and he just looked at me for a second and then picked me up by the throat (I guess because I wasn’t running away and that was easier than hitting me until I was down and then picking me up). Well, when he picked me up, I took a little clover chain I’d made out of my pocked and dropped it around his neck and he just looked down at it, and back up at me, and at the necklace, and he really slowly set me down and took it off and picked me back up again, but I had a second one and I did it again, and when I took out the second necklace he just stared at me for a couple of seconds and then really slowly walked over to a hook and hung me on it, and then stayed in front of it for a couple more seconds to just look at me, all confused. He took off the second necklace and walked off, but he kept looking back. Mostly he avoided me for the rest of the trial after David the cop got me down. (Unfortunately, I think he saw the whole thing, because he kept giving me looks too like I was crazy…) But at least with the Wraith I think that’s some serious progress! He chased me if I got close, but it was way easier than normal to lose him, and if I was near anyone else he’d go after them instead. It did sort of feel more like an ‘I don’t want to deal with that again’ than a ‘I don’t want to hurt her’ mood, but still! Very exciting news! (Thanks for the idea about the flower chains, Kate!)

-Claudette Morel

p.s. Meg, why did you include the part about the Clown? Did something new happen, or did you just want us to know?

 

Awesome! Does that mean we should all start bringing stuff into trials? Since it was effective? Do we try to keep sort of replicating that, or should we keep trying to do everything we can think of, and see if something new works better?

Also, did he actually _eat_ your finger Meg? Because what the fuck?

\--Quentin

 

Yay! I’m so glad we got some good news finally! This is a little unrelated, because I haven’t seen the Wraith yet, but I was talkin’ to Ace and he ran into the same guy we did a few trials back and the cop Claudette mentioned. I know the cop (sort of); his full name is David Tapp, and the other man is really nice, from Ace’s description. A little off-subject, but if we see them we should focus on trying to get them to join the group.

As far as the Wraith goes, that’s really reassuring. It sounds like it’s sort of working, and like he’s acting similarly to how he did before, so Dwight can stop worrying about him having been really messed up after whatever happened in the basement. Let’s keep trying gifts, since they seem to be distracting him at the very least. Claudette also told him her name, and Quentin and she both had some success with the hands-up, palm out, ‘I just want to talk thing,’ so let’s keep a steady run of those three? It feels like being consistent will help us in the long run.

-Kate Denson

 

Claudette, I wrote about my finger because I was kinda sad about it. Quentin, I always thought that’s what he does with fingers when he kills people—does he not? What the hell does he do with them, then? Use them as decorations????

Also, I was in that trial with Claudette too! And I want to add that it was a lot more fucking wild than she described. Like, she broke the Wraith. It was like that scene in Lilo and Stitch where he’s trashing her room until she puts a lei on him and then he just falls over. KO’d. He was just staring at her for a good 15 seconds like “What the fuck???”

Poor bastard. I wouldn’t know what to do either. Fuck’n wild. Also, while he was chasing other people (including me. He sacrificed two of us, me and the cop), I tried to talk to him too. I kept bringing up specific things that have happened, like him letting me escape for a whole week and me running around taunting him (good times), or him making friends with Claudette, and kicking Dwight. That pissed him off after awhile, so maybe don’t try that. I mean, dude did kill me. I was getting confused looks too, but like “The fuck is wrong with you? >: (” kind of looks, not the good kind of confused.

-Meg

p.s. The Clown’s a little bitch and he can bite me.

p.p.s. Oh wait, oh fuck, I gotta think of a better derogatory term. He can…no. …I don’t really want him to kiss my ass…he’s so gross… Everything I’m thinking of is even worse…

 

Meg, thanks for giving us all that mental image. The Clown is terrible though. I just love getting drugged and hacking my lungs off. It’s not like I have enough trouble seeing without bright pink smoke in my eyes. Also, why is him eating fingers the normal and not upsetting option to you? Wouldn’t decorating be less disturbing? I mean, obviously not by much, but a little? Now that I’m thinking about it though, when the trials end we get all our fingers back…do you guys think that means that his copy of our finger vanishes? Or do we all just have a shit ton of clone fingers in a box somewhere or in his stomach? I never thought about that, but I could ask the same about the internal organs of mine the Hag has eaten…Eww. I take it back, I don’t even think I want to know.

Kate and I still haven’t been in a trial with the Wraith. Mostly we keep getting this new thing—it’s a ghost, with these chopped up arms and pieces of glass sticking out of it, and it’s so fucking fast. I hate it.

I am a little concerned though. I’m glad we seem to be making progress with the Wraith, but last time it seemed like as soon as the Entity was onto him, it was over. So, should we be being so obvious? That said, I don’t really know how to tell you all to do it surreptitiously yet…

And Kate, noted. We will all keep an eye out for the policeman and the other guy.

-Dwight.

 

It’s a good question, but how can we be subtle and get through to the Wraith at the same time? I guess we could pass him notes or something, but I doubt he’d read them. Surely the Entity doesn’t watch every trial. Sometimes multiple groups are in trials at the same time, and Dwight said it took a few minutes for the Entity to show up in the basement, so it can’t be omniscient.

If we could just tell better when it is and isn’t around, we could just try to avoid being suspicious when it is watching, but I have no idea how to do that.

-Claudette Morel

 

Well, I’ve been thinking, and the Entity doesn’t seem to have done anything _yet_ , right? We haven’t been being subtle at all, and nothing with the Wraith has changed, so maybe it’ll only interact if we successfully get the Wraith to act differently? If so, that would make things a lot more doable for us.

\--Quentin

 

I think Quentin is right. We should just have a plan for how to act once we get him to chill out. Speaking of, I’ve been in back to back to back trials with him and it’s been WILD. I’ve decided my best course of action is to try and force him to interact with me in some way outside of the usual murder chase. Big goal. However, I’m _super_ good at getting what I want. <-OuO

SO. I rolled up, start work’n a gen, I see him coming all invisible, and when he appears behind me I jump up and say “Wait, if I can guess your name will you let me go?” and he swings at me and I run off and throw down a pallet and when he catches up I go “Okay, so, you’re way too interesting to be John. Crossing that off. What about a William? Or an Andrew?” and he gives me a look and breaks the pallet and starts chasing me, but I’m a god at running and I start dodging and weaving and putting bushes between us and cars and going “What about Davis? David? Daniel.” and he’s getting super pissed at this point, but that won’t stop me! You all know how I am!

So I lead him all over the place, jumping windowsills and shit, and eventually he gets me and puts me on a hook, but David saves me and we book it out the exit (lost Ace and Dwight). So right after, I get pulled into a trial with him again, and I see him and I’m like “Hey bitch!!” and he looks like “You again?” but he chases me, and I rinse-repeat, and I’m like “Ryan? Rhys? What about Adam, or Benjamin? Benny? Boris.” and he’s getting more and more annoyed, and stops chasing me to go after other people, but I keep harassing him, so after he sacrifices Jake he tunnels me, and I keep on keeping on. Start throwing out weirder and weirder names. I hop through a window and I’m on the roof outside and he’s inside looking at me and I’m all “So, I know I’m going out on a limb—or a windowsill, if you will, but what about Bartholomew?” and he climbs right out after me and I jump off the roof and he jumps off after me and hits me in the back and as I run off I’m like “Nebuchadnezzar?” and he gives me this look like “what the hell are you smoking?” and I’m like “Well you’re not giving me any leads to work with!” Anyway, he chases me down and gets me and I end up dead in the basement—think only Kate made it out of that—but before I die I’m like “Saul? Solomon? What about Hassim, or Amir? Omid? Benji? Ivan?” and he just walks off.

So, we get to the third trial and I’m starting to feel like those Old Spice guys like IT’S ME!!! And he sees me and he’s just like _Ah, shit, not this again._ So we’re standing there, he’s seen me and Quentin on this gen, and I know if I want him to chase me in spite of having two targets and me being just _devilishly_ good at evading I got to start off strong, so I’m like “I know it’s you, Archimedes, you’ll never take me alive!” at the top of my lungs and run off cackling. He chases me and wounds me, but I lose him when he goes after Nea who I accidentally run right past, but I find him again and start going through every name form every Bollywood film I’ve ever seen on Netflix, and he’s getting more and more irritated with every Arjun, and then I start just picking characters from popular books and superhero names, and man there are a lot of X-men to go through, and I’m getting pretty cocky because he’s actually less good at hitting me when he’s pissed off, and we go wild chasing all over Haddonfield and I’m dabbing through windows and looping police cars like the goddess Nike herself, and eventually I lose him and hide in a locker under one of the houses and I hear him come stomping down the stairs and he’s looking all around the room (there are like six lockers) trying to figure out where I’ve gone and I wait until he’s right in front of my locker about to check it and I go “Is it Thomas?” through the locker and he flips out! His face gets this great expression on it like he wants to scream but also is trying not to laugh, and I throw open the door and duck between his legs and take off shouting “What about Mike?” and he throws the fucking sickle at me and hits me in the shin and that hurts like hell but I pick up the sickle cackling and run off with it saying “Mine now, Zachary!” and he books it after me and gets me, and at this point everyone else is gone free (except for Nea, who got extremely unlucky and got sacrificed like one minute into the trial) and he catches up to me only like ten feet from the house we were in and grabs me by my collar and I take a swing at him (sorry guys, it was instinctive : ( I know…) and he catches the thing before it hits him and rips it out of my hand and picks me up. All the time while he’s stealing the sickle and carrying me I’m like “Okay, not Mike—what about Peter? Avery? Dwight? I know a Dwight, and you know I could see you as one, or maybe a Jimmy? Calvin? No, Lex??” and he walks over to the hatch and drops me by it and lets me go. So I stand up and I’m like “Does that mean I guessed your name right?” and he just sighs and raises the sickle in this really threatening way and I’m like “Okay, okay, I get it, I’m going,” and I hop in the hatch, but before I do I turn to him and I give him the little heart with my hands and he looks at me like (– m –)  like he can’t believe I’m like this and I escape.

Heh heh. This one is for all you doubters who said you couldn’t annoy someone into dat affinity stat, you were wrong. ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)

-Meg “epic” Thomas

 

…Meg, what the fuck did I just read?

-Dwight

 

This really brings me back to the days of LiveJournal.

-Kate Denson

 

We could all start adding signatures to our additions!

-Meg

[*~ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ~*<3 ]

 

I can’t…I’m not…strong enough.

-Dwight

 

Why are all of you being weird? This is great! Meg, good job! I mean, it's not what I would have done, but I think it sounds like you did at least seriously make him reconsider the nature of what’s going on here. I’m really excited!

I was in a trial with him earlier today, and when he saw me he looked kind of resigned, and after he caught me and knocked me down, and stooped beside me and held out his hand for the necklace he knew I had, and I gave it to him, and he picked it up and stayed there just looking at it for a second, and then kept going with the trial as usual. I ended up getting sacrificed, but he didn’t throw away the flowers this time! I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I think it’s good. Nice work, Meg!

-Claudette Morel

 

She wasn’t on LiveJournal, god bless her. Meg, I guess she’s right. In a way, it’s working. Big progress for us. Next time we’re in a trial with him, any of us, maybe we should try talking to him more seriously? Since he seems to be at least thinking of us differently, he might be ready to hear some of what we have to say.

-Dwight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Philip's been through a lot this past week. Ganged up on by a bunch of kids. 
> 
> I hope all of you enjoy the chapter! Next two are finished (sans a final editing pass), and should be up soon. Big thank you again to everyone who reads. : )


	22. Preemptive Measures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After trial after trial of the survivors trying to reach him, Philip finally can't take it. He has to know what's going on.

Nervous and uncertain, Philip paced the floor of the garage, trying to think.

_What the hell is going on?_

His fingers found the wilted clover chain he’d stuffed in a pocket after the girl who’d given it to him had died, and brought it out. She’d been doing this so often—all the time—why—why the hell?

“What the fuck is going on,” Philip whispered, dismally slumping to a seat with his back propped against a wall. Looking out at the forest of birches past the rotting ceiling of the shed, he took in a deep breath of fall air.

It didn’t make sense! None of it did! For what must have been a few weeks or something now, they were doing this to him. Not all of the humans, but some of them—just acting crazy. It had started with the small girl with glasses. _Claudette..._ He wished he didn’t remember that. It had been better when he hadn’t known any of their names. They kept on telling him, though—especially her.

And after she had started, then it had been the insane redhead, running around taunting him so lighthearted, like they were friends? It was like a whole handful of them suddenly didn’t care if they died at all!

But no, that wasn’t right either—they begged for their lives. At least most of them. They kept telling him he was better than this, or that he had a choice—the redhead had told him he had been friends with them once, which was ridiculous. The small boy who always looked exhausted had asked him to leave two of the others alone because they were in love. The little one with glasses kept trying to put flowers around his neck! Of all things—why the hell? Trial after trial, endlessly the same, hunt after hunt, work as a reaper—for years—and then out of the blue this…this…madness? Suddenly everyone was breaking the silence to talk to him, and trying to give him gifts, and—

Philip put his head in his hands and groaned.

He knew—he _knew_ that they tried to manipulate him, that they would try anything to get him to leave them alone. The Iska had talked to him about this. That had to be what this absolute anarchy was, but he couldn’t take it anymore! It was too much! It was so hard to feel like they weren’t…sincere. The little one with glasses always looked so hopeful if he did anything, anything at all she could take as a sign of softening. If he waited a moment before picking her up, or didn’t throw the flowers on the ground and stomp on them—if he even looked at her. No one ever looked at him with hope. Like he was the answer to some prayer.

“I don’t understand…” Philip whispered up at the sky, head tilted back against the wall. “I don’t understand this at all. What am I supposed to do?”

There was no answer.

 _There never is,_ thought Philip, gaze still fixed on the stars. _Fuck._

For a moment, Philip considered writing in his journal—trying to get his thoughts out and make sense of them somehow, but he gave up on that without even trying. The night was cold and it felt simple, sitting in the garage and waiting for a trial. So much easier than the actual trials had been of late.

 _I can’t keep doing this,_ thought Philip, moving to lay on his back on the ground, staring up at nothing.

It was true, but he was afraid to talk to the Spirit. It had been so disappointed in him only recently for falling for the human’s acts. It had given him information on what they would do, and why, and still he was having so much trouble. _It’ll be disappointed in me. It will be angry,_ thought Philip, and the thought filled him with dread. _I can’t._

But he couldn’t go on, either.

For an hour or so, Philip tried his best to sleep—to turn off completely and not have to think about it, but his brain was against him, and it kept replaying things he’d seen. Not just the ones who had been giving him trouble, either. He saw the girl who crept along like a cat holding hands with the girl who was so fast on generators and laughing as they slipped out an exit, and he saw the same girl’s face crumpling as she watched the same friend die. There was an endless supply of memories, not only of things that filled him suddenly and against his will and better judgement with guilt, but things which showed a change. He remembered long ago, the boy who broke hooks stealing away again and again when others were caught, and then there had been a period he’d started to come back for some of them. Now sometimes he came for them before they were even caught, trying to distract danger from them. Philip remembered how scared the little girl with glasses used to be. He’d caught her trembling in corners so many times, and back then it had been easy. _Why didn’t that make me feel bad?_ wondered Philip, as seeing the image of the girl so paralyzed with fear in his head now made him feel sickened. _What changed? What changed in me?_

There were other memories, newer. He’d caught the boy who always looked exhausted and hung him on a hook. Two already dead, and the blonde girl who would stab you if you weren’t careful had gotten a door open and been free to go, but she hadn’t. She must have known it was suicide, but she’d come back for the boy and freed him, and had downed her right by the door and almost gotten the boy, too. He’d just barely managed to crawl past the burrier in time. She hadn’t seemed to care, though, when he went back for her. She’d been smiling. He’d sacrificed her, and she’d still looked happy. Proud, maybe. There were newer men, too. A policeman, and a man who was maybe a doctor, who wore a white coat. In his last trial he’d almost stumbled over the man in the white coat and the older man who often smiled and had been around much longer. Philip had uncloaked and chased them down, but in the brief moment before he did, he’d seen them recognize each other and smile. The way someone might look seeing a family member they hadn’t seen in months get off a train, or a boat, or arriving from a flight. _Why?_ Why did it matter—why was he only thinking of things this way now?

_Fuck._

There was no getting sleep. There was no getting around it.

“Iska?” Philip called, slowly pulling himself to his feet. “Entity?”

There was nothing, no response for a moment, and then he felt a rush of cold air about him, and then a white-hot heat which flickered into existence, and he sensed its presence, waiting in the basement.

_The basement._

This would be fine. It would be fine…

Steady and slow, in a manner that was almost cautious, Philip walked to the top of the stairs and looked down them. His face twitched involuntarily as his gaze landed on the landing, feeling like something faint had triggered an unpleasant memory. _Odd. Shake this off, and go. Just be calm._

Taking a deep breath, Philip walked down the stairs and through the ever-thickening air until he was close to the Spirit. Its presence hung in the air around the center of the room, and he felt its eyes on him as soon as he entered. He moved a few steps forward until he was before it, and the air around him thickened. Black smoke, cutting off sight beyond it. “Thank you for coming here,” Philip said to the blackness, “I am sorry, but I need to talk with you.”

“And?” asked the Entity, waiting.

“The souls,” Philip said slowly, making a sort of empty gesture with his hand.

“Ah.” He could hear the distaste in the Entity’s voice.

“Please, hear me out,” continued Philip. “I…understand, how it is…How they are?” he added, slowly pacing in a half circle as he tried to think through what he meant to say. “I know they lie and manipulate, and that they were some kind of monsters in their lives, but…I don’t think that can be everything now.”

The Entity was silent, but he felt the air thicken and blacken around him. He could _feel_ its low anger beginning to submerge him in the smoke, like rising water.

“I’m sorry,” hurried Philip, taking a step backwards out of a primal fear he felt at the Entity’s anger “But, please—please I need you to listen to me.”

“I need to listen?” came the Entity’s voice, disbelieving.

“It’s not like you believe it is,” said Philip, putting his hands up, palm-out in a calming gesture, suddenly uncomfortably aware of how many people had used that same gesture on him over the past few weeks. _Begging for their lives. It did not stop me._ “Maybe they were monsters in life, but look at them now,” he continued, trying to focus on his goal, “I don’t believe the actions they take to help each other are meant to just manipulate, and beyond that they have changed here.”

“Wraith,” said the Entity almost too calmly, “It’s because you are so easy to manipulate _that_ they act like this. Any act of kindness or humanity from them weakens your resolve unbelievably.”

Philip shook his head. “No. I don’t think that is all. Just look at them. You must have seen things yourself. I have watched the ones who used to leave others to die return tp die in a friend’s place—I have seen them choose pain or death for no reason other than to keep another from being alone. You were with me, you saw the way the small girl died before, when you had me kill everyone by my own hand” he said, mind playing again the image of her trying to hold onto to the dead friend she had begged him to spare in the moments before he had dragged her away and killed her. “And then, these past few weeks,” he hurried to add, almost excited or reassured by the thought of new evidence, “one of them keeps giving me gifts and telling me she thinks I’m good, and two of the girls—they’re in love. That is a change, and I cannot believe it is for some terrible hidden purpose. They are in love stupidly. They run around holding hands even though it slows them down. I have caught them because I have heard them talking, trying to help each other. Not only to survive, but to feel better.”

“Wraith.” The Entity’s voice was stern this time, almost harsh. It wasn’t hearing it. He felt the rebuke in his body as if he’d been struck.

“Please,” begged Philip, fighting the urge in his chest to run, and the voice in his head telling him to shut up and drop this. “Please,” he said again, taking a step towards center of the inky blackness above. “If you would just watch them you would see—they aren’t all still like you think. They act friendly—”

“—They _act,_ ” cut in the Spirit.

“No,” Philip said, “No, it’s more than that. Please, if you would just watch some of my next trials, I can show you. I think what they go through here has caused them to change. Some of what they have said to me is insane, but I think some of them mean it. Please, I know I must sound weak and wrong, but please, I am begging you to just watch even one trial. I can show you. They can change.”

“I know,” said the Iska, voice both tired and irritated.

“You…know?” asked Philip, stopping and lowering his hands towards his sides. “…What—”

“Such a pity,” said the Entity, voice making a sound almost like a sigh, “I can’t believe it. It’s been only something like two weeks. This fast? _Really?_ I can’t believe it. This is some kind of record. I suppose I should have prompted you better after resetting you the last time.”

“What?” asked Philip, staring up at the inky black smoke in confusion. “Reset?—You…I don’t understand?”

He barely had time to even recognize movement, far too slow to react as suddenly two of the Entity’s claws shot out of the darkness around him and caught him by the shoulders, dragging him back against the wall behind him and slamming him hard against it, pinning him there as more of the thing in the smoke materialized around him.

“Wait! Wait, I don’t understand!” said Philip, panic welling up in his chest as he tried in vain to struggle against the claws pinning him back. “What have I done wrong?”

There was no answer, and the smoke thickened about him and Philip began to find it harder and harder to breathe. He started to cough, trying to fight the dizziness that was coming over him.

“Please—I’m sorry, I don’t mean to show you disrespect!” he said desperately to the thick blackness above. “I will listen!”

“I believe you, and I might be able to keep this going for a bit,” replied the Entity’s voice, no hint of emotion anywhere, “But it would only be a matter of time before they reached you in this state. You’ve broken down too much, too quickly. I may as well reset you preemptively.”

“Reset me?” Philip’s voice was strained and full of the fear that was coursing through his veins. _What the hell? What have I done?_

“You’ll forget all of this,” said the Entity. “I might need to make sure you’re a bit more…compelled for a while after this as well, stop them from just doing it again.”

“But why?” asked Philip, absolutely lost. “I can listen to you, you know I respect you; I serve you—if you would only explain I would—”

The claws around his arms tightened, cutting into his flesh and Philip let out a cry of pain.

“No,” said the Entity darkly, “You would listen to them. You always do, eventually.”

“I—” He stopped, remembering the ridiculous string of things the redhaired girl had accused him of the first time he had seen her acting strangely. _“You let Claudette go, and she gave you a bandage, and then you kidnapped Dwight for questioning and he thought you were going to kill him, but you took him off a hook and let him go. You have to remember some of this! Even amnesia has memory triggers and shit, right? You keep on forgetting, but for like a whole week you were just letting me run away and we had this thing going where you’d chase me and I’d flip you off and make fun of you, but you’d never actually hit me—come on! Remember something!”_

“I have…done this before?” he asked, trying to find the center of the Entity’s presence in the room, where its eyes would be, and focus on it.

“Many times,” it replied, and for a second he almost thought it sounded…pleased by that.

_Why? Why would…I…it… … …_

Philip ran through every memory he could think of, the strongest, the most important memories to him, ever since he had come here. Slowly, he turned his head and looked at the talons digging into his arms and the blood slowly dripping from them onto the floor. _I’m not even fighting back. Like I already know I can’t win. Like my body already knows it’s over._ The basement, the light seeping in through cracks on the wall, the inky sky, the obsidian claws, the whispering voice, and a thousand tiny fragments, moments he had missed when they happened. People he had killed. People.

“…My gods never answered me, did they?” he said after a moment, looking at the array of hooks in the center of the room.

“No,” replied the Entity. “They abandoned you like everything else.”

Philip nodded, almost out of habit, and any fight that he could have had went out of him. _Of course. Of course…I was so fucking blind. Of course I was. Again, and again, the same idiot, I fall for the same trick. Why would they come for me? I wish that I had died in that wood. _He watched as more limbs descended from the deep onyx smoke and a burning metallic claw rested against his chest.

“Finally figured it out at least,” the Entity commented, shifting above him in the mist, “For a minute I thought I’d broken you too much last time. But I forget; it’s that you’re just stupid.”

The burning of the sharp talon hurt, and Philip was scared, but his hopelessness outweighed the fear and left him empty, with nothing to give him the energy to plead, or scream, or attempt to fight or flee. _It wouldn’t matter. I won’t even make the doorway._ What then—just die? Or, or forget again? And again, and again? _It doesn’t matter, there’s nothing I can do._

“You cause me so much trouble, Philip,” sighed the Entity. “But then again…” with a sudden flash of movement, the talon at his chest slashed across his torso, cutting him with a thin slice from shoulder to hip. Philip let out a scream, jerking back against the talons holding him and cutting himself deeply into his arms. “That’s part of the fun,” it finished.

Philip hung where the claws held him, mind screaming in pain as blood licked its way down his side. _Why. I..._ Everything was a blur or pain and confusion. Trying to comprehend a new context for so many things he’d done and so many things that had been done to him, Philip felt utterly lost. _Then they were right. Right this whole time. I’ve been killing children, and people with whom I was a friend?_ It was too much, too overwhelming to understand all at once, and in a second it wouldn’t even matter; he’d forget again. _It said next time I should be more “compelled”? What does that mean—what will it have me do? I have no choice? There must be something…I…I can’t…_

“You know, Wraith, you feel very strongly,” it commented, black talons flickering close together in front of him in anticipation, like a spider’s legs. “Wrath, despair, pain, guilt. You’re very human, deep down. Almost a pity I don’t have you on the other side of this.”

The claws shot out and latched onto his forearm, dragging themselves down along its length and slitting it open like it was skinning a hare. Philip cried out and started to try to fight against the claws pinning him back then, the pain enough to beat back the despair for a moment, but it was like being held down by a vice, and the struggle only made it hungrier. He could feel it—like it was grinning at the sight.

“Yes, better—good! Fight back. Don’t just submit. It’s more fun if you struggle.”

The words seeped into him and made him feel sick. He tried to tug the more intact arm free, but the motion was like dragging his muscle against a razor, and the Entity pulled back, dragging him back against the wall and pinning him there.

“You’ll have to do better, or I’ll come up with things myself,” he heard it whisper. The fog grew thicker, and he began to choke on the smoke and cough, fighting to clear his lungs. Below him, a claw slowly burned into existence from the ground, like a vine creeping up, and dragging itself along his leg, taking skin and muscle with it as it moved, agonizingly slow. Philip kicked the claw with his other foot, desperate to make the pain stop, but it was like kicking iron bars, and it burned him.

“Not good enough,” the whisper hissed at him, and a claw hooked itself into his shoulder and slit straight down, slow, impossibly slow, savoring every second, carving open his chest and stomach and letting his entrails seep out through the open wounds onto the floor while he screamed.

He thought the pain would kill him—or knock him out, but it didn’t. It was unbearable, but he couldn’t stop it, he couldn’t turn off. “Please,” Philip choked out, looking up at the fog, desperate, “Just kill me.”

“Not yet,” replied the thing looming above him. “Not until I’m satisfied.”

 _I can’t…there’s nothing I…_ All he could feel was agonizing wave after wave of pain, and fear, and despair, but he wanted to fight. He didn’t want to forget, or to end up here again, dying pinned to a wall. Or to kill. _I cant…_ His eyes stung with the smoke, and Philip’s gaze rested on a burn scar on his arm. _How did I get that? I…_ The Entity dragged a claw across his cheek, cutting him deep, slicing at the corner of his mouth, and Philip lost concentration. His vision went hazy. _No…I had…I had an idea…_

He tried—he fought to remember. Philip’s blurry vision came back into focus on the cut in his chest and the blood running down his legs. _Cut._

He started to struggle again, against the arms pinning him back. Each movement was agony, but he couldn’t look precise. _Maybe._ Fighting with all his strength, Philip got one of his hands above a claw. The things were hot, sharp, covered in tiny barbs that made cuts jagged and broken. He closed his fist down fight around a spike and felt it dig into his palm. _Fuck. Fuck—what? They’re always telling me their names, what name is…_ There was no way, a name was too long. _Last name. Last name._ He tried, letting the past few weeks come back to him in fragments. _Quentin…Quentin…shit…Dwight? Claudette, Claudette…Mo….More….Claudette…_ He didn’t know, but it had started with an M, for sure, and that was enough. He dragged the spike under his palm, carving first a “C”, and then an “M” as he struggled. _Scars stay,_ he half told himself, half-prayed, _Scars stay…_ They did—they had to, didn’t they?

A talon caught him under the ribcage and hooked upward and Philip’s vision went white for a second, and he could feel blood running down the corner of his mouth. When his vision came back, his head was lulled forward against his chest and he could feel his little remaining strength draining away. It was like being dead. Philip tried to raise his head to look at the Entity he could hear moving above him, but he didn’t have the strength. “Please,” he said again, voice dry and barely audible, “Just kill me.”

One of the claws caught him under the chin and lifted his head up to look. There was nothing to see, just the darkness, moving like it was alive. “Beg,” said the voice, savoring the moment. “And I’ll consider it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One step forward, two steps back. But maybe it's the other way around this time. With memory alterations, it's always hard to come up with ways to combat that, but he's doing his best.
> 
> Thanks for the continued support! Next chapter will also be up soon, though a heads up that it was by far the most unpleasant chapter I have ever written. Probably of anything. There are a lot of events after it which I'm excited to get to, though, so there's a lot to look forward to. Thanks again!


	23. Waking Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whenever things start to look up in the fog, there's always something a few steps behind it to remind you just where you are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific content warning for especially sadistic graphic torture and violence.

A long time ago, when he was a much younger man, there had been one thing that David King was afraid of.

Even before he began collecting debts for friends who ran bars, or fighting in underground tournaments, it had never been pain that David was scared of. As a boy, he’d fought his way through plenty of bullies. As the rich son and only child of a wealthy family, he was the target of much resentment growing up, and while he could have handled that through his father or mother, through the school, through any of the options money and the good opinions of teachers could buypass or buy, he’d always wanted to sort it out proper. After all, it’d hardly be proving someone wrong about him being s a spoiled rich kid if his response to their insults was to throw money at the problem, now would it? Fair and square meant bare knuckles to a jaw. They couldn’t say he’d bought that.

Growing up, David hadn’t had a lot of friends, but he hadn’t been lonely either. There were always a few. Madeline, a girl who took judo and had been able to knock him on his ass; Timothy, a smart boy who got shit for speaking his second language poorly and had shared similar opinions on Grange Hill. Others as he aged. When friends were bullied or in trouble, David would fight for them, too. He thrived on it.

It wasn’t the shine of a knife blade against a streetlight, or the sudden cold steel of a pistol that he feared either. After he’d been banned from Rugby for going to town on a referee who’d had it coming for over-fouling to help his home team, David had had more than his fair share of those things, too. He’d been stabbed in the stomach collecting debts for The Fitzgerald, been clipped by a bullet once interrupting a street mugging. He didn’t fear it.

None of the things his rich friends had feared scared him either—not losing his wealth, or disappointing his family. David’s family didn’t much care what he did, so long as he was happy, and it wasn’t murder. Money itself was so much not an object to him that he didn’t fear losing it. Besides, David lived like a man working construction, not the man he was. Cheap bars, self-repaired car, dingy flat with a punching bag hanging from the ceiling and a couch that was worn and more comfortable than any bed. And if he’d ever needed it, there was always home to go back to.

David didn’t fear losing, either. He fought, and he almost always won, but even his losses were never true losses. He’d take the hand of an equally bloodied man and tell him he’d crush him next time, and next time he would. The kind of loss that built drive to get better, that made friends.

No. That was never it.

Many of the people who had met him in the Entity’s woods probably thought he had no fear, only anger and disappointment. More of them probably thought he’d never known fear before he set foot there. But neither opinion would be correct. There had been one thing.

As a boy, David had had a dog. A bulldog, named Boris. It had been a puppy when he was four, and gotten older with him. When he was fourteen, his family had been celebrating David’s father’s birthday, and somehow Boris had climbed onto the table and consumed half of a chocolate cake without being spotted. They found him in a corner of the room, dying, and rushed him to the vet. David rode in the back with the dog’s head in his lap, stroking its head and promising to it that it would be alright. They didn’t make it to the vet’s.

Years went by, and David forgot what it was like to feel fear, until one day in college. Twenty-one. It was the holidays, but not exactly. Not Christmas, not New Years. The 28th of December. Some people had stayed over for Winter Term classes—some to get ahead, some in a last attempt to save grades and make up failed courses. He’d been drinking. Not drunk, just happy. Walking home from a bar. There’d been a girl. One he’d never seen before, but must have gone to his school, because they had been wearing the same scarf—school colors. It had been a gift thrown into the crowd at random during a Rugby game, so she must have been close to him once in proximity, but never seen. She was standing on Trinity Bridge, looking down at the water. It wasn’t much of a night. No snow, no rain, but not clear either—just overcast and cold. After, David was never even sure she’d seen him, about twenty feet away and passing, back towards the academy on foot, when she’d hauled herself up over the railing and jumped.

David had gone in there after her. There was a horrible moment where he hadn’t been sure what had just happened, as he watched her go over and there was nothing and then the sound of a distant impact, and then he’d dropped the bottle and run to the side and looked down, and he couldn’t see her in the water down there. Just the white from where she’d hit, the remains of a splash. Looking down, one foot on a white rung, maybe he had been afraid, because it was high and the water was cold and black, but if he had been scared, that hadn’t registered, and he’d jumped.

When he’d jumped, David had thought the cost of that moment would be diving into the freezing black abyss. Like a decision you were asked to make in a game, or puzzle in an ethics class. Risking death, risking freezing, risking that fall into the black river below, and that if he could do it he would save her, but then he’d hit the water.

It was colder than anything he’d ever felt, and his limbs tried to lock up. The water engulfed him and David sunk, and as he did he had opened his eyes and there had just been…nothing. Nothing but darkness, as far as he could see up, and down, and in any direction. He’d swum down as far as he could, looking for her, unable to see, until his lungs felt like they would burst and he’d turned to swim back up to get a breath and he couldn’t tell which way up was, and it was like there was no above to get back to at all, and then David had fought with everything he had and his body had found the surface and he was up, gasping for air in the Irwell. David had spun in the water, freezing, eyes stinging, and he’d looked—looked for her, in case she’d come up—looked for bubbles, for movement, for something. But there was nothing but blackness.

He’d filled his lungs with air and dove again, as deep as he could, going more by feel than anything else, praying his hands would somehow catch onto that scarf, or hair, and he would be able to pull her back up, and as his lungs gave out in the frozen, still, empty nothing of the pitch black river Irwell he had known true fear. Fear that he wouldn’t find her. Fear that she would die, lungs full of dirty water, maybe while she changed her mind and struggled to the surface. Fear that he could have done something differently, and fear that he’d never had a chance at all. Fear that he would see this horrible, black, slow-moving nothingness in front of his grasping fingers in every dream for the rest of his life.

He came up out of the water calling for help, hoping someone else could intercede. Search and rescue. The police. Anything. Then he’d gone back down into the endless dark below, fighting an unwinnable battle against the current, and time, and the despair of a girl with nothing left to lose.

People came too late. Maybe there had never been any other way things could have gone. He would never get to know that. David had stayed in that river for an hour and a half, before he was forcibly dragged out by rescue personnel. He’d been hospitalized. Exposure, then pneumonia, and sick for about a month. After two days of dragging the river they found the girl’s body. Years later there were still nights, even here in the fog after everything he’d seen, where the nightmare that came to him with sleep was her, was that endless darkness, and the cold. Searching, searching, never once even in the dream finding.

 

* * *

 

“David?”

The name barely registered, tugging at him to come back out of where he was, to wake up.

“David?” Still quiet, but louder, the voice carried pain and a hushed urgency, “David, please. Please wake up.”

_Wake up. You gots to. Someone needs me. Ow...Shite. Fuck’n…fuckn’n give me a second…I can’t focus…my…_

“David?” A second voice, worn and cracked. Almost ragged.

Everything was blurry and dark when David opened his eyes. He blinked, trying to focus then, and became aware of a deep pain in his stomach, the smell of blood, and hot steam coming off pipes in the Badham Preschool basement. _Ah fuck…_

“He’s still alive.” Relief and restraint, forced calm—a third speaker, but David was more awake now. _I know that voice,_ he thought, trying to focus on it, _…Jake._ It took a second to click.  He tried to focus his blurry vision in the direction of the sound and after a second he saw him, standing up against a line of pipes in the wall, pinned there by barbed wire tied around wrists above his head. The skin around the wire was torn and bleeding. _Must’ve tried tear’n free of ‘em on his own..._ David thought, still only half conscious. He felt weak and sick, like the life had been drained out of him. Jake didn’t look much better. One of his eyes was blackened and swelling, and there were deep cuts along his chest and left thigh.

“Jake?” he whispered back, “…The hell’s…” There had been two others, hadn’t there? David tried to get his bearings. His own wrists were free, although he felt so empty and weak he wasn’t sure he could move on his own. He tried though, doing his best to pull himself up and crawl closer to Jake. Everything around him was wrong—shadowy, and there was fire leaking from the pikes. _Why? What the fuck’s…_

“Careful. You’ll cut yourself.”

It was the second voice again—exhausted and strained. This time he recognized it. _Quentin._ He hadn’t seen him at first, he hadn’t seen anything but Jake across from him, but as his focus came back to him he was aware of Quentin, only about seven feet away, but in shadow, hanging from the pipe he was tied to. The pipe was low enough to the ground that Quentin could have stood on his own if he’d had the strength to, but he was slumped, held up by his arms, which were pinned to the pipe behind his back by something David couldn’t see.

It was dark, but not so dark David couldn’t make eye contact with the younger man, and he followed Quentin’s gaze and looked behind himself to see a tether like Jake’s, wrapped around his ankle. _What?_

“The fuck’s…” David started, and then it all came back, and he took it like a blow.

 

* * *

 

 

Nine minutes ago, the sound of something that wasn’t children, but wanted to sound like children singing, had warned David that this was going to be another bad trial. If he wasn’t David, he would have thought of it as yet another fight he couldn’t win, but that had never been an idea David could just accept, no matter how much logic his brain tried to throw his way: a fight he couldn’t win. There had always been a way.

Almost.

He wasn’t as good at sneaking around as a lot of the smaller survivors, but he’d learned—he had had to. You could never see the Nightmare, though. Once you heard him coming, gauntlet blades dragging against the wall, singing mockery of little girls closing in, you knew he was near, but you couldn’t see him. You wouldn’t know which way to run. If you hid, you wouldn’t know if he could see you until it was too late. You had to guess.

The first time David had met Quentin, it had been on a basement hook. They’d been struggling, side by side, and he’d wondered how the hell someone could look so tired and so awake at the same time, like they were hanging on by a thread, but onto that thread with the strength of a giant. Then he’d come face to face with Kreuger, and he’d understood. There was no privacy in his personal history for Quentin, no ability to escape his past. It stalked him, hungry for encore after encore, and everyone knew it, especially him. No wonder he never slept. No wonder he never stopped trying to wake up.

As far as trials with the Nightmare went, for the first four minutes, this trial hadn’t been so bad _._ But David had known it would get uglier long before it did. The air was thick and tense, the way they had learned to expect meant a Killer was out for something special. A more personal something. It had been him, Quentin, Jake, and Meg. Before the trial had started, they’d all been optimistic—they were a good draw, with talents that balanced and supported each other well. Then things had begun, and everyone had realized fast that they were not a good draw at all—not against this.

The Nightmare had gotten close to David twice, but he’d been lucky. The first time he’d managed to outrun him, and the thing had gotten distracted by someone else, giving David time to wake up by shocking himself with a loose generator wire. The second time, he’d heard it coming, hidden, and been passed over. Everyone else seemed to be fairing similarly, but they were spread out, and no one had gotten much work done. The Nightmare was fast and relentless. He didn’t always kill people quickly—in fact he rarely did that—but there was never room to breathe. The Nightmare had found most of them a few times each already, dragged them forcibly into his nightmare realm, maybe carved a gash into an arm, and let them run off to lick their wounds. Slowing them, forcing them to look after themselves before getting the generators done. _Toy’n with us_. David hated that.

 

* * *

 

 

“David?”

 _Meg._ His mind placed her as the first voice he’d heard. David wasn’t sure how he’d missed her. She was beside him, a few feet to his right and a little behind him, laying on the floor on her stomach like he was. One of her wrists was tied to a pipe close to floor level. She’d tried to struggle free too, like Jake, and the wrist was torn and bleeding. There was blood seeping out of a deep cut on her cheek that had bruises forming around it, and when his eyes met hers he could tell that she was scared.

“Are you okay?” she asked, voice hushed, “You were out for something like a minute.”

“Aye. You?” he lied, watching her pale face in the firelight.

She nodded silently.

“Where’s he?” asked David, struggling with every ounce of strength earned from years of rugby and fighting to pull himself up onto his elbows. The effort nearly made him black out, but he fought it off, willing himself to remain up.

“Close,” replied Quentin quietly, glancing around the basement, “He disappeared a minute ago because he wants to watch us wonder when he’s coming back. The bastard likes to see people squirm.”

It was almost silent in the room as David tried to force himself up onto his knees. The open wound in his torso had soaked his clothes in blood, and he felt sick trying to move. _You’re not dead, so keep on. Geht up._

Blood trickled down the side of Quentin’s face and caught the firelight as he turned to try and get a glimpse of the stairs back up to the preschool above.

Jake watched David, a focused expression that was maybe his version of concern on his face as David struggled to his knees, but no one said anything. Finally, David made it up, and the motion almost made him black out. _Fuck, ahm go’n ta pass out if I don’t do somethin’._ He leaned back against the wall and tried to catch his breath and fight back the dark creeping in the edges of his vision.

 _Close,_ thought David, looking around at what he could see of the basement, _Could be anywhere._

The silence lingered, nothing but the sound of David trying to catch his breath and Quentin’s blood dripping against the floor.

“This the same as last time?” said Jake finally, turning his head towards Quentin, his voice quiet.

 _Last time?_ thought David. Jake looked…off, off in a way David hadn’t seen before. He had never seen Jake truly scared, but as he watched, there was something in Jake’s eyes. Maybe fear, maybe dread? Maybe something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Close enough,” replied Quentin, sounding hollow. “If any of you can think of a way to kill yourself before he gets back, you should probably try.”

David looked at Quentin, then Jake. Jake pursed his lips, like he really was genuinely considering methods. “Fuck,” he heard Jake whisper under his breath.

There had been lots of trials with the Nightmare for David, and every single one of them had been fucked up in a way he couldn’t have dreamt of before being trapped in the fog, but he hadn’t been trapped like this before. The fucker was always slow—sadistic in a way not even the Pig was. The Nightmare had been especially awful a few times, but David and Jake had never been in those trials. They’d known about them, but not in detail, only that the people who’d been in them hadn’t been okay afterword, and hadn’t wanted to talk about it. At least, that was all David knew.

“Isn’t it against…whatever rules there are?” asked Jake after a second, voice quiet and cold. “Not to follow the pattern?”

“You don’t know him,” said Quentin, gaze still fixed on the stairs. The blood from a deep forehead gash had run into his right eye, and with his arms pinned behind him he was unable to wipe it away, so he had it closed to try and keep the blood out. It trickled past the eye and down to his chin where it fell to the concrete floor with a steady drip. “If they get punished for breaking rules,” Quentin added quietly after a second, turning to look back at the other two, “I don’t think he cares.”

 

* * *

 

 

Being dragged into a nightmare was an awful experience. You were perfectly awake when it started, awake and scared, and high on fear and adrenaline, and you knew—you _fucking knew_ that you were safe until you fell asleep, and that if you fell asleep the thing out there could get you, but you didn’t have a choice. No amount of slapping yourself, or keeping in motion, or trying to fight it would keep him back, or wake you up.

The sensation of being pulled into a dream itself was difficult to describe. Sometimes, when getting a normal night’s sleep or taking a quick nap, it’s possible for your mind to come back online before your body does, which leads to a truly awful sensation called sleep-paralysis. In sleep-paralysis, you are fully conscious, but physically cannot move your body at all. The kind of fear that sensation brings is hard to describe to someone who has never experienced it, because there is nothing quite like it. A paralyzing powerlessness floods you when you are not only physically unable to move or respond to the world around you, but have no choice in being fully aware of it as well. Being dragged into one of Kreuger’s nightmares was similar. The song would start to overtake you, and fog roll in at the edges of your vision. You would feel dizzy, out of breath, and then your eyes started to close, and you would feel your own heartrate slow—would feel yourself losing consciousness. It was like getting drowsy behind the wheel of a car—a mixture of the knowledge that sleeping would kill you, and an inability to completely stall the process. Only, here there was no pulling over to the side of the road, no energy drink. And what was coming when you finally lost the struggle to stay awake was far worse than any collision. You never really had anything but the illusion of control about being dragged into the Nightmare’s world. No matter how much you fought to stay awake, your fully conscious brain doing everything it could to keep you away from the thing waiting on the other side, your body would still always betray you in the end, while you watched, helpless, and then you’d be awake. Awake in the dream. It felt like waking in the way you do if you dream you’ve missed a step, or fallen from a rooftop—waking with a jerk, but when that feeling brought you into the dream world, it was just a sign you were still falling.

Jake had gone down first. David had heard Meg scream, and he’d stood up on instinct, intending to run and help her. When he had looked for her, he’d been able to see her just barely, far down the street by Badham Preschool, with her head lulled to the side and her eyes open. Asleep, stuck in a nightmare. He couldn’t see the Nightmare himself, but David had seen the cut suddenly explode along Meg’s arm as she raised it to protect herself and something that wasn’t there sliced her open, flinging blood past her and onto the pavement. She was in a bad position too—backed into a corner, with little chance of escape, but they were too far away from him. David had known that if he went to help her, the Nightmare would have gotten Meg and put her up on a hook by the time he was even close, and it would see him and coming and go after him once it had finished with her, and there was no way he would be able to lose him or to save Meg, but no matter how much he knew that, David couldn’t make himself _know_ it—not deep-down, and he went to try to help her anyway. Or, he had started to, but then Jake was there, between Meg and the thing that wasn’t quite real, and the Nightmare left her to go after him.

Meg had still been stuck in the dream though, so David had run another fifteen feet down the street with the intent of waking her before he saw Quentin reach Meg and wake her himself. All three of the other had vanished then, back behind houses and fences, and David had returned to his generator feeling useless and kept working and tried to focus on that, on getting things done.

And then Jake had gone down. Somewhere in the preschool, by the looks of it—the worst possible place for the Nightmare to get you.

It was fast after that. It was always fast, but not like this had been. David didn’t know how it had happened. Maybe one of them went to save Jake, maybe they just got unlucky, but he had heard Meg scream again, and then seen Quentin go down, and then her, and then the Nightmare was coming after him.

The generator beneath his fingers had lit. It had been the only generator completed. David knew he should have left it and run, since lighting it would give away his location, but it was so hard to force yourself to give up on a step towards survival when you were that close, just one second more needed, and so he hadn’t stopped.

Once the generator was on, David ran, trying to make it around the area hugging corners to reach the preschool unnoticed. As he had run, the Nightmare had gone to move Jake beneath the Preschool, but it had left Quentin and Meg to bleed.

 _I oughta be able to get one ‘ah them back up ‘fore he gets the both of ‘em,_ he told himself, hugging the slight cover offered by a car and trying to guess which one the Nightmare would go for first.

But it didn’t. It went for him.

He didn’t know how it had seen him, or when, but it was on him fast, relentless. The song started up and dragged him in, against his will, against his body’s will, no matter how hard he fought. He was running then, slow, like in any nightmare, too slow, and the thing was behind him, laughing, dragging its fingers along trees and across cars, carving deep scars in them. It got close and swung at him and David dodged out of the way, just barely, and made it over a windowsill. Ducking and weaving through halls of the preschool as fast as he could, David almost stepped on Quentin, shirt bloodied from three long gashes across his back, face pale from blood loss. And afraid. The Nightmare was the thing Quentin feared most, and everyone including the Nightmare knew it. David could hear the Nightmare behind him, getting closer, but he couldn’t leave Quentin, so he had grabbed him and half-carried, half-dragged him to his feet. He had shoved the small boy forward through the doorway ahead of him and felt a claw dig into his back. David had turned and seen it then, lost to the dream himself. The Nightmare, his burned face grinning, shirt stained with blood, bladed fingers flexing and dripping. _Fuck ‘im,_ David had thought in a sudden blinding rage, and he had grabbed a child-sized chair sitting by a table at his side and brought it down on the other man’s head. It had exploded into little plastic and wood fragments around him and the Nightmare had laughed.

 _Fuck this!_ David grabbed the table and he had swung it like a club. It shattered against the Nightmare like a pane of glass, doing absolutely nothing.

“Oh, no, go on,” the Nightmare had said, leering, gesturing to the other chair in the room, sick smile plastered to its face. “I like a little foreplay.”

With one quick motion, David had snatched the chair and brought it up against the Nightmare’s jaw in a swing that should have broken it. But, like everything else he’d ever tried to fight back with, the chair flew into pieces before it even really reached his target, and the Nightmare moved just as fast, lunging forward, his gauntlet cutting clean through David’s stomach and out his back.

David coughed, and he had felt the taste of blood in his mouth as the strength went out of him. He slumped forward against the arm through his middle, and the Nightmare caught him and let him slide slowly to the ground as it drew out its hand.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he had heard it say as it flicked his blood off its glove, “I’ll be right back.”

It hurt. Laying on his back on the floor of Badham Preschool, that was all David had been able to think. _It hurts. Fuck. Fuck, et hurts. I…think I’m dyin’._

He didn’t used to fear anything about that. Pain, or blades, or dying. It hurt, it hurt _so_ unbelievably much. His body was seizing, and the hole in him was a deep kind of pain that didn’t come in waves, giving relief between onslaughts—it was endless and unchanging.

There had been a scream in a voice he recognized as Quentin’s, and then David had known it had been for nothing. He’d fucked up, they’d all fucked up, and now they were finished. _Quentin. Fuck, ah hope it’s fast._

Sometimes, things went terribly in trials—even worse than the usual kind of awful. Sometimes the Shape would kill everyone, one by one, this unstopping thing, never running, never breaking a sweat, but somehow always just behind you. Or the Hag would manage to eat people, ripping them apart and swallowing their intestines while they looked on, screaming and dying. Not too long ago, he’d been beaten to death by the Wraith beside Claudette, knowing she was next and there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do about it—hearing her screams as he died.

David had thought this would be like that.

He had been wrong.

Still in the dream, bloodied and weak, David was only partly conscious when Kreuger had come back for him, and when he was lifted up the blood loss had made him black out completely.

 

* * *

 

 

Slowly regaining his breath while leaning against the wall, David looked down at the barbed wire encasing his ankle. It couldn’t be so he wouldn’t lose track of them. They couldn’t just crawl away like they usually would have tried to do. Once you were in the dream, the Nightmare never lost sight of you. If you tried to crawl away, he would come find you and drag you back.

“He’s going to do it again.”

David looked over at Meg in surprise, and he could sense Jake and Quentin do the same. She hadn’t moved from where she’d been dropped by Kreuger, laying on the ground, unmoving. She looked ready to break, like she was at the end of being able to hold it together and the smallest crack would finally shatter her. On impulse, David looked at the other two to see if they had any fucking idea what to say. He could tell tell from his expression that seeing her like this was worrying Jake, and that was something that was hard to do. Quentin just looked miserable.

“Meg, I’m so sorry,” Quentin said, “He’s here for me, this shouldn’t keep happening to you.”

 _Tha’s right,_ thought David, _Was Quentin’n her’n Claudette’n Ace the last time._ David didn’t know what last time had been, or what she was remembering, but whatever it was, it had been bad. _I should…There gots ta be somethin’ I can do.._. _Aye?_

Using the little strength he’d been able to recover leaning against the wall, David dragged himself back onto his stomach and over towards Meg until his tether was cutting into his ankle and he was beside her.

“It’ll be a’right,” whispered David, putting an arm around her like that would be able to protect her.

“He’s…” Meg whispered, unable to finish.

“Ah know,” said David, thinking of Ace and trying to emulate the sense of security the older man had given him right before he died, and he took Claudette’s small hand in his large one. “It’ll get over fastr ‘n it seems. Try’n tune everyth’n out as much as ya can, a’right?”

She nodded, her face pale. Not from blood loss like him, but from fear. They were quiet for a second. David could feel her heart pounding in her chest. It slowed a little as he held her, waiting. Then they heard the singing start up, quiet, but growing steadily closer, and he felt her heart speed up, frantic.

“David?” she whispered again, voice catching in her throat.

“Yeah,” he replied, trying his best to sound reassuring and steady.

“I’m scared.”

 _Yeah._ He could feel it, feel her tremble. It wasn’t just her, either. They were all scared. “Ah know,” he said quietly, “It’ll be a’right. It’ll end.”

Empty promises. _Lies._

“Well, isn’t this sweet,” came the Nightmare’s voice from all around them, “I hate to break up such a compelling scene, but just watching gets old.”

“You fucking coward!” Quentin shouted, lunging against his restraints. “You can’t live without picking apart people who can’t do shit to fight back!”

“Aww, still working on that psychological assessment? I’m flattered, Quentin. Didn’t know you still cared,” the voice echoed around the room. “Little narcissistic to think I can’t live without you, though,” he added, materializing beside Quentin, “wouldn’t you say?”

Quentin tried to jerk free, and moved himself as far from the Nightmare as his bonds allowed, gaze full of hate and fixed on the thing before them.

“Don’t worry,” Kreuger continued, running a bladed finger along Quentin’s jawline and leaving a thin red cut in its wake, “You are special.” He stood then, taking a step back. “But you’re not my favorite.”

“No,” spat Quentin, eyes following the burned man as he moved, almost looking just a little smug, “You lost your favorite for good.”

Almost without having to look, Kreuger’s bladed hand shot out and grabbed Quentin’s throat, fingers cutting into the skin as he squeezed, cutting off oxygen. David flinched involuntarily as he saw the little slits of bright red appear all along Quentin’s neck.

“Good point,” the Nightmare said, the anger that had been there a moment ago fading as a slow smile crept over his face, “Guess I’ll have to pick a new one.” He turned to face the others, hand still tight around Quentin’s neck. “Any volunteers?”

They were all silent. He saw Jake’s eyes narrow and felt Meg tremble beside him. _Fuck, the hell ahm I suppose’t do?_ He could see Quentin’s face growing pale as his body twitched, trying to breathe through the grip on his throat.

“Awww,” said the Nightmare, turning back to look at Quentin, “They’re shy. Guess you’ll have to pick for them.”

The Nightmare released its grip on Quentin’s neck and he gasped and started to cough uncontrollably.

“So, which one?” the Nightmare asked, moving away from Quentin and over towards Jake and placing its bladed hand near his heart. “I’ve never been a huge fan of the big outdoorsy type, but I’ll admit Dean was pretty fun. Maybe I should branch out.” He strummed his gauntleted hand against Jake’s chest. “Thoughts?” Jake held perfectly still, not looking at Kreuger, barely even breathing as the blades tapped against his ribcage.

“What?” Quentin managed to get out between coughs.

The Nightmare gave him a disapproving look. “Come on, Quentin, it’s not that hard. Since you’re the expert, which of these three would be the best replacement for Nancy?”

“None of them are anything like her,” snapped Quentin, breathing almost back under control, “And you already think so too. Just kill us—it’s better than listening to your voice.”

“Wow, now that really hurts my feelings,” said Kreuger, removing his hand from Jake’s chest. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you don’t like this game.” He slowly walked over to David and Meg and looked down at them, then back at Quentin and grinned.

David could feel Meg’s heart pounding as she tried not to look up at the Nightmare.

“We can both admit there are better possibilities,” said Kreuger, crouching between them and looking back over at Quentin, “the scared little girl with glasses: ‘Claudette,’ what a name. There’s ‘Laurie,’ the pretty blonde—she might be fun, after all, she’s already somebody’s favorite.” His voice got conspiratorial, “Got to be a reason for that, right? Peel off a few layers and maybe I get to see what he’s getting that I’m missing out on. But for now, let’s stick to present company.”

Without any kind of warning or tell, Kreuger grabbed David by the back of his shirt and tore him away from Meg in a single lightning-fast movement, flinging him back against the wall like he weighed nothing, and knocking the breath out of him on impact.

“Could be interesting,” said the Nightmare, giving an overly fanciful gesture towards David, “Though guy. Lot of things to break there. And then of course there’s Meg,” he reached down without looking and lifted her up by the wrist that wasn’t tied down, pulling her against the restraint and making the barbed wire dig into her arm. She let out a little cry and closed her eyes. “At least we already know that she’s fun,” finished Kreuger, giving Quentin a wicked grin. He let Meg drop and stood up.

“Go on, then, choose,” said the Nightmare, standing up and making a sweeping gesture at all three people on the ground. “Or I could just make it a package deal?”

Quentin’s eyes swept the group, looking hunted.

 _Jesus Christ,_ thought David, still trying to recover from having the breath knocked out of him, _What kind of bloody fuck’n sick game-_

“Me,” said Quentin, looking back up at Kreuger.

It laughed. “You,” asked the Nightmare, moving up to Quentin and placing one bladed finger at the edge of the cut over his right eye, ever so slowly carving the edge of it as he spoke until the gash went from one side of his forehead to the other. Quentin closed his eyes and twitched under the pressure and pain, trying not to cry out as his forehead was sliced open. “You can’t pick yourself, Quentin. I asked you to pick one of them,” said the Nightmare, standing back upright. “Besides, I’ve had you,” He added as he turned and moved back over towards Meg.

“Wait!” shouted Quentin.

“Oh, sorry, one-time offer. You didn’t pick, so I’m going to try sampling them all,” the Nightmare called over its shoulder. It knelt beside Meg, grabbed her wrist, and ran its gauntlet down the length of her arm. She did what David had told her to, and turned her head away, eyes shut tight, breathing fast with fear.

“Stop! I’m the only one you have a history with!” Quentin shouted desperately, the gash in his forehead covering his face in his own blood, and his voice getting louder with each attempt to draw the Nightmare back, “I’m the one you lost to, I’m the one who took away your favorite, and I’m the only one who could ever be your new favorite! You’re just playing with everyone else!”

“I like to see you jealous,” grinned the Nightmare, looking back at him, “It’s cute.” With one swift motion he tore his fingers along Meg’s arm, peeling the skin from it and drenching it in a spray of her blood as she screamed.

Jake and Quentin both shouted, but David couldn’t tell what over his own “Fucking bastard!” And he lunged at the crouched figure despite his rational brain’s intense screamed warnings that this would only make things worse.

David’s fingers dug into the Nightmare’s sweater as the wire around his ankle dug in, cutting his lunge shorter than he’d wanted, and he pulled backwards with all his strength, trying to drag the man away from Meg.

It didn’t work. David just half hung there, clinging to the sweater, while the Nightmare stayed put like it was bolted to the floor. It’s head slowly swiveled around impossibly far to look behind it at David.

“Not very patient, David,” said Kreuger, leering down at him, “I like the fighting spirit, but you’ll have to wait.”

It backhanded him so hard that the wall cracked this time when David hit it, fingers still clinging to bits of torn fabric, and pain shot up his left side.

His vision went dark at the impact, and he heard someone screaming his name, but he couldn’t be sure if it was Quentin or Meg. Everything was muffled, and slowed. _Fuck…fuckin’ bastard…ah’ll…_ He tried to drag himself out of the wall, back up at least to his knees, and he couldn’t. There was an unbearable pain ripping down his left arm as he tried to leverage himself, and as he turned to look down at it he could see bone poking through the skin at his elbow. _Fuck et,_ David thought, gritting his teeth, overcome by a blinding fury, and he tried again. He heard the sound of something tearing.

“David! David, stop!” Desperation—Quentin’s voice. David looked up and saw him looking back, eyes wide with fear and horror.

“No, go on,” said the Nightmare, watching him with hungry eyes, “I like it when they fight back.”

With one massive surge of strength, David used his right arm to drag himself forward, pushing against the wall. He heard a _snap_ as he fell forward, and felt a screaming pain travel up his left arm. David did his best to catch himself with his good arm, but he was too slow and he hit the ground and had to drag himself back up to his knees.

“Jesus Christ,” he heard Quentin say, voice quieter now, but full of grief and horror.

When he looked, the arm was half detached, flesh torn open and bone exposed, hanging there by a little muscle and flesh.

“Leave ‘er alone,” David managed through the pain, looking up into the Nightmare’s face with defiance and hatred and a look full of murderous intent that would have scared any normal person.

“All of you seem really attached to this one,” the Nightmare said in mock surprise, grabbing Meg by the back of her neck with one hand and pulling her in front of him until she was almost in his lap, then wrapping the gauntleted hand around her from behind and running it across her exposed stomach from the sport croptop she wore, not yet cutting the skin.

“I’ll fuck’n kill you,” David said through gritted teeth, so angry for a second he didn’t feel any of the pain.

“I’m shaking in my boots,” replied Kreuger without a hint of sincerity. He craned his head down and to the side until he was speaking in Meg’s ear, “What do you think, Meg? Could this work out, long-term?” he leaned in even closer and whispered, “Did you miss me?”

A flick of his bladed glove dug a single claw in at her belly-button, deeper and deeper, slowly, until it was embedded up to the last knuckle. Meg flinched and let out a choked whimper, fighting the urge to scream with everything she had.

“Fucker!” shouted Quentin, lunging at the pipes again.

“Fuck her?” asked the Nightmare, smirking up at him. With one quick motion he pulled the finger embedded in her stomach right, dragging it clear to her side, gutting her. Meg screamed, fighting against the arms pinning her in place, flailing as blood poured out of her, and finally grabbing his face with her free hand and tearing into it with her fingernails.

His skin tore open and peeled back, coming free easily and oozing puss and blood onto her hand and down his chin while he laughed.

“That was fun, but let’s see if we can’t make it more interesting,” said the Nightmare, leaning its head speaking into Meg’s ear again, “Let’s see,”

“—You can’t make me scream.”

All four of them looked up at Jake in surprise, even the Nightmare. He’d been so quiet David had almost forgotten for a second that he was there. Held upright by wrists suspended above his head, he had his gaze fixed on Kreuger, expression set and readied.

“She’s easy,” continued Jake, his voice level and lacking emotion, “You’ve done this before, so you know that. It’ll get boring. But I’m not like that. No matter what you do to me, I won’t scream.”

“Jake,” said Meg, voice almost a whisper, like instead of saying his name she was saying the word “don’t.”

“And you don’t have all day, do you,” Jake continued, perfectly calm, “Your boss’ll be pissed once it realizes you’re doing this shit again. Otherwise you’d do it all the time. You going to relive last time like a weak little bitch, or make it a challenge?”

“I’m loving the Lieutenant Kaffee thing, very courtroom-drama-little-shit,” said the Nightmare, letting go of Meg slowly. There was a flicker and suddenly he was standing up, beside Jake, sizing him up.

As Kreuger disappeared, Meg fell to the ground on her side and used her free arm to try to keep pressure against her gutted stomach. She bit her lip to try and keep from making any noise, but David could see silent tears welling up in her eyes as she looked at Jake. Kreuger glanced behind himself and grinned at her. “How about you, Meg? Like to watch?”

“You always leave before you’re finished?” asked Meg. The strain in her voice was immense, like saying it had taken everything she had.

 _Shite,_ thought David, watching her. The girl had some inner strength he hadn’t dreamed of.

Kreuger laughed. “Well, I wasn’t really planning on it, but if you insist.” Leaving deep red gashes, the Nightmare dragged his claw across Jake’s chest like he was testing the waters, seeing how easy this was going to be. Jake’s face twitched, but he didn’t make a sound, looking straight forward, past the Nightmare.

“Kreuger!” called Quentin, trying again to draw him back.

“Wait your turn,” replied the Nightmare, holding up a finger without looking. He ran the gauntlet along Jake’s side, then up an arm to his fingertips, leaving nothing but tiny scratches along his path. “This little piggy went to market,” he said running his fingers over Jake’s thumb. There was a sudden flick and the index blade dug through the thumb, cutting it off and leaving it to fall to the floor, “this little piggy stayed home,” he continued, running the gloves along his index finger and then slicing it off, “this little piggy had roast beef,” as he finished the sentence he let his fingers close around Jake’s middle finger and he slowly pulled, ripping it free in painstakingly halted motion, not slicing. Jake swallowed and his face twitched, and David saw his chest rise and fall as he took a big breath to try and steady himself, but he didn’t cry out.

“Stop,” begged Meg on the floor, starting to cry. “Why?”

“Why?” asked Krueger, pausing, still facing Jake, letting the blades of the gauntlet scrape together in a sound almost like scissors made. He made a slice with two fingers, catching Jake’s ring finger between them and cutting it in half, and Jake jerked involuntarily at the pain. “That little piggy had none,” he added to Jake as an afterthought.

It was suddenly beside Quentin then, fingers closed around his hair, and it jerked his head back painfully, exposing his neck.

“Want to answer for me?” the Nightmare asked Quentin.

“I wish I’d killed you the first time,” Quentin replied, voice steady.

In one swift motion, Kreuger dragged his claws across Quentin’s face, scoring deep scars past his eyes and into his cheeks as the boy screamed.

“Well, Meg,” the Nightmare replied, turning his head to look at her. “I just enjoy playing with kids.”

 _Sick fuck’n basterd,_ thought David, overcome with anger watching Quentin’s head fall forward as the Nightmare let go, and feeling sick. He had been paying attention to the Nightmare’s movements, and to Quentin, but he felt eyes on him and turned to look. Jake was trying to steady his breathing, but his eyes were fixed on David, and as soon as their eyes met he saw him mouth something he couldn’t make out the first time. Jake recognized the confused look on David’s face and tried again, and this time David got it. Then Jake looked at Meg. David followed his gaze.

 _Shite._ But he was right, wasn’t he? She was curled on the floor, arm still to her torso, watching Quentin and the Nightmare and quivering. _That’s right, she’s been through this b’fore,_ thought David, _shite…_ Jake was right, even if he took his time cutting off every finger, he’d go back to Meg eventually. She was bleeding, badly, but it could take minutes for that to finish her off.

 _Ah can’t be noticed,_ thought David, slowly lowering himself onto his hands and knees as if too exhausted to stand. _Gotta be careful._

“Isn’t there supposed to be a fifth pig?” said Jake, tone still unbelievably calm, and the Nightmare turned from Quentin back towards him.

“Not bad, Jake,” said Kreuger, “You’re not all talk, but I think I’m up to the job.”

David slowly pulled himself towards Meg, fighting the urge to black out, inch after inch after inch, his left arm dragging behind him, sending wave after wave of pain.

“I don’t know,” replied Jake, “You haven’t done shit yet.”

“You really should learn not to talk back so much,” said Kreuger. There was a horrible _shlick_ of the blades, and then a sound like gargling, and David looked up in spite of himself. Blood poured out of Jakes mouth, and Kreuger put his hand beneath the boy’s chin and tilted his head up and back so he would choke on it. In his gauntleted fingers, he held most of Jake’s tongue.

 _Fuck’n hell,_ thought David, feeling a sensation he didn’t know well welling up in his chest. _Panic. Ahm panick’n—this is no the time, stop it!_ But that was easier said than done. He saw the little knives holding up the torn piece of flesh for Jake to see, and for a second David saw his own hand, outstretched against the blackness of a river. Nothing he could do. _Fuck it, no. No this time._

He dragged himself the last few inches and was beside Meg again. She was shaking and crying silently, looking up at Jake. When she saw David she whispered “We have to help him,” so quietly if he’d been any further away there would have been no sound at all. She looked so broken and helpless, not like he’d ever seen her before.

“Aye, I know,” replied David almost as quietly, “I’m go’ta take care o you first, then ‘im. You trust me?”

She nodded, and he believed it. She trusted him more than she should have, like he was someone who could actually save her.

A few feet away, David was vaguely aware of Quentin shouting something and the sound of the Nightmare’s gauntlet carving through flesh. He didn’t look this time.

“This’ll be fast, aight?” he whispered, and he reached over with his right hand and closed it around her throat and started to squeeze. He saw her pitch weakly under his grasp on instinct, her body fighting for air, but her eyes weren’t afraid of him. Just heartbroken as she looked from him back up at Jake. “Ah know,” David whispered again, “I’m sorry. Ahl get ‘im next.”

Above them, Jake started to struggle, convulsing as the Nightmare dug its fingers around one of his eyes and started to tug it out of its socket.

Beneath him, David felt Meg’s body stop fighting, felt her go still as the life left her, felt the moment he had killed her and she took her last breath. The second he was sure, he looked up at Jake and shouted “It’s done! You’ve done it!”

Jake screamed. The kind of awful, long, agonized scream someone could only ever hear in a place like this. Screaming without a tongue. Fear, and agony, and hatred, and despair, and pain above all—the kind of broken pain humans weren’t meant to ever know, or suffer. The scream was long, like the scream of someone dying, and once it ended he screamed again, and again. Like it might give him some relief.

Quentin watched, horrified, as Jake’s screams echoed around the basement and he tore against the wire holding him up. Even the Nightmare looked surprised for a second, and then what David had said clicked and it whirled around on him and Meg and it understood, and as soon as it understood what had happened it kicked him, knocking him against the same wall he’d been thrown into earlier.

It stood then for a second, moving in a half circle, one finger held up in a _wait_ gesture as it thought.

“That,” it said finally, looking from David to Jake, who had stopped screaming and was hanging silent now, eyes closed, like all the fight had gone out of him “I’ll admit, that was clever,” he glanced down at David, “Never would have thought you had it in you.”

From the time the Nightmare had noticed David, Quentin had been watching them too, and as it spoke realization flashed across his face, and he looked from Jake’s still, faintly breathing form, to David. It was hard to read his expression in the darkness. Horror, pity, pain, guilt?

“They’re a lot more decisive than you, huh Quentin?” asked the Nightmare, grin returning to its face as it turned to him.

This time, Quentin said nothing.

“So much bravado,” it added, turning back towards Jake, “I’m almost impressed.” It closed the distance until its face was inches from his own. “Almost.”

Jake was still, quiet, head hanging limp. His left eye socket was nothing but a bloody circular wound, and blood still dripped from the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, did you think it was over if you screamed?” asked Kreguer, running his gauntleted hang up Jake’s neck and under his jaw, tilting his chin up with one bladed finger. “Look at me.”

Jake’s eye stayed shut.

The Nightmare’s gauntlet swung across his chest, digging against Jake’s collarbone. Jake’s body shuddered as the blades cut into his chest and he flinched. “Look at me!”

“Enough!” shouted Quentin from across the room, “That’s enough!”

Kreuger turned to look, a slightly bemused expression on his charred face.

“Every fucking time you’ve done this, I’ve been here,” Quentin said, tugging again in vain against the restraints, “Every single _fucking_ time, it’s been me, and I’m the _only one_ it has always been. You chose me, over and over and _fucking_ over. You keep fucking with them because I’m not afraid of you anymore, and you think it’ll get to me better if you go after my friends, well it won’t!”

David could see Jake breathing weakly beneath Kreuger’s hand, eyes still shut. More tissue than person, at this point. _Fuck’n hell, it’s goin’ ta do that to Quentin now,_ thought David, watching in a frozen horror. _I gotta do someth’n. I can…I can…_ Can what? There was nothing, there was no single fucking thing he could do, not for either of them. They were too far away, and he was almost dead himself. _Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck._

“You wanted me, fine,” Quentin snapped, head raised, defiant, radiating anger, the blood from the forehead cut still slowly trickling down his face and into his shirt, “But nothing you do will ever really get me, do you fucking get that? You lost the day we both got taken. You’ll never get Nancy, and you’ll never even really have your consolation prize in me, because every time you tear me apart and kill me, I’ll come back, and each time, I’ll be a little less afraid of you, and I fucking hope whatever the punishment you get for fucking around like this is, that that thing in the sky really makes you burn.”

“You know,” the Nightmare replied, letting go of Jake, “You’ve gotten a lot less pathetic since you came here. But you’re just as cute, and small, and scared as ever.” He walked over to Quentin, slowly, sniffing the air like an animal. “You’re not scared anymore, Quentin?” he leaned in close to the boy’s face, “That’s a lie. I can smell it on you. That’s always been the only really fun thing about you, you know?—how easy you are to push around, how easy it is to make you squeal.”

Behind the Nightmare, David saw Jake’s chest rising and falling slower and slower as his blood dripped onto the floor. _Thank god, yer almost there._ It wasn’t the first time he’d seen a friend bleeding out and prayed, for their sake, that they would die before whatever was looking for them found them, but he had never felt it this desperately. For a second, he saw Jake’s eye open weakly, and he looked over at Quentin, and then it closed again and he went still. _Please be dead,_ prayed David, too far away to be sure.

“Leave ‘im be,” said David, struggling to use his good arm to raise himself off the floor again. He was starting to get cold, but he couldn’t die. There was no way he could just give up and leave Quentin here, alone.

“Your other friend,” said the Nightmare, grabbing the side of Quentin’s head and forcing him to look, blades digging into the skin by his ear. “The big, protective one, here to take a hit for you again. Really seems to like you. You’re not cheating on Nancy already, are you?”

Their eyes met, and David could see in the flickering fire light how exhausted and hurt and scared Quentin was. Running on empty, and still trying. But so tired, so close to down and out.

Kreuger let go of Quentin and crossed to David, footsteps echoing against the concrete louder than they should have been able to sound. David had at least a full foot of height and was much larger than the Nightmare, but the thing bent down and picked him up by the throat like it was nothing, jerking him up so hard that the barbed wire around his foot cut clean through his heel and he was pulled free of it with a scream of pain.

The Nightmare, dragged him over to the glowing furnace a few feet from Quentin, and slammed his back up against it. David let out a yell as he felt the intense white-hot of the grated metal burning into his back, and the room filled with the sickening smell of burning human flesh.

“You know what, Quentin?” it asked, looking up at him as David screamed, “Since the last game was so fun, I’ll let you make another choice. Careful though, you really do have to pick this time. Wouldn’t want a repeat.”

It let go of David, and he fell forward away from the grate, convulsing on the ground as his charred nerves reeled from the pain, and the burning sensation continued to spread throughout his back even now that he was free of the metal.

“Your friend here wants to protect you, and you don’t want me to hurt him. It’s a tough choice, so let’s make this interesting.” Kreuger moved back over to Quentin and held his chin in its gauntleted hand. “Since you both feel so strongly, we’ll play a game, and I’ll let you choose which one. I can carve him open while you watch, then throw him in the furnace if his heart’s still beating when I’m done, or I can take you, and tear you apart while he sits there and watches you scream, long and slow, until I’m finished. Whoever you don’t choose, I kill quicker, but they have to watch. Your choice.”

Quentin looked at David and David shook his head. _Do no do it ya fool,_ he thought, meeting the desperate gaze of his friend, _I’m stronger’n you are, I can take it—I want to be the one. You know it. Do no do this, please._

The Nightmare paused, looking from Quentin to David and back again, and a slow grin spread across his lips. “What’ll it be? Do what he wants, or do what you want? Better chose fast, Quentin, or I might have to pick for you again.”

“Me,” said Quentin, swallowing hard, eyes still on David. The boy looked so sorry. He turned his head and looked back up at Kreuger. “Do it to me.”

_Fuck._

The Nightmare laughed. “A little predictable, Quentin. Don’t think your friend likes this much, but I can’t say it’s not what I was hoping you’d pick.” It released Quentin’s chin and dragged one of its claws down his throat, all the way to his collar bone, leaving a little red line in the flesh behind it. “After all, it’s been awhile, and with how much trouble you’ve caused, I think I’ll enjoy a little payment.”

It moved away then, and over to David, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and dragged him across from Quentin, near where Jake’s body hung. David was shoved back against one of the pipes, and the Nightmare coiled a length of the same barbed wire tight around David’s neck, pinning him there, the tiny spikes digging into his throat and making it hard to breathe, reminding him of the way his fingers had closed around Meg’s throat and he’d choked the life out of her. _I’m go’n ta have to live with that,_ thought David, fighting the urge to vomit and trying to block out the memory. _I’m go’n ta have to…_

“Wouldn’t want you to look away," said the Nightmare, then it leaned in close to David to whisper into his ear. “Don’t worry, I’m not finished with you yet, David. There’s still plenty of time. And if you try to find a way to quit early the way your friends did, I’ll take it out on him. But you won’t try that, will you? Because this—this is worse for you, isn’t it? This is what you’re afraid of. I can smell it on you.” The thing was so close to David that he could smell its burned skin and his friends’ blood all over it, and he felt his pulse quicken at the question, and as it did he saw the corner of the Nightmare’s mouth twitch up into a smile. “Oh, that’ll make this fun.” It let out a soft, low, horrible laugh, and then suddenly it was gone from beside him and back with Quentin.

 _I can’t just do noth’n, I have ta…I…_ David looked up at Quentin desperately, trying to think of something, of anything he could do. The smaller boy met his eyes and tried to smile, like this was going to be okay. Then the Nightmare moved between them. _Fuck, I…_

“Where to start, though?” asked the Nightmare, running its hand along Quentin’s chest. It reached up and carved a few little slits into his cheek almost absently while Quentin twitched, fighting the urge to make a sound. “Well, there’s not really a rush.” It hooked one claw at the top of Quentin’s shirt, slicing downward and slowly slitting the shirt in half and carving deep into the flesh beneath it as Quentin cried out. It stopped the motion just above his hip and withdrew its finger. Looking at Quentin, it moved the claw up to its face and licked the blood off it. “Too bad I can’t give my regards to your father myself. This’ll have to do.”

Quentin screamed and tore against the pipe he was tied to, consumed with anger and pain, his chest heaving with panicked breaths.

“Like I remembered,” Kreuger said, a smile creeping into his voice, “So easy to get a rise out of.”

It placed its claws in the center of Quentin’s chest and slowly started to dig them in, inch by inch, while the boy’s body convulsed involuntarily at the pain and he let out a choked sound almost like a whimper. It pulled the blades out with one quick motion, little fountains of red gurgling up out of the puncture wounds and leaking down his bared and damaged chest. Quentin’s shoulders shuddered as he tried to deal with the pain, and he fought back a muffled sob.

“Then try some’n harder,” said David, his voice dry and scratchy. Speaking hurt. The barbed wire was so tight that even swallowing was painful.

“No, not this time,” replied the Nightmare, focus still solely on Quentin. “I like easy,” it said, leaning in close to Quentin.

Quentin’s face twitched, and he tried not to look at the Nightmare as it reached down and carved a long slit up the side of his leg. David saw blood soaking down into his tennis shoes and starting to pool. “Bring back memories yet?” asked the Nightmare, leaning even closer, “or should I try harder?”

David looked up into Quentin’s face and his friend met his eyes. Fear, agony, horror, exhaustion, trauma. Most of all, misery. Like he wanted to cry even more than scream. Miserable that this was happening, that this had happened to Meg, to Jake, to David. That it was happening to him, and with an audience. _He can’t do it,_ thought David, _He can’t go through this shit with me watch’n._ That, he understood.

But.

 _Fuck, I’m sorry,_ he thought, looking up at Quentin. _Ah can’t do what you’d want ‘n leave you alone with him. Ah can’t, you’ll…_

Quentin looked so broken. Not once had David ever seen him beg for his life in a trial, but he was begging silently now, with David. His expression was so hopeless. _Fuck, ah can’t…_

“I’m sure I can bring something back,” said the Nightmare, fingers flicking together in anticipation. It reached down and began to carve a slow trail from the base of its cut down Quentin’s torso. David watched Quentin flinch and close his eyes, turning his head up and away from the Nightmare, as if he could shut it out. The Nightmare kept carving, slowly, watching Quentin, savoring every little twitch of pain and breath of fear. David saw the smaller boy swallow hard, trying to choke back sounds of pain, and as the fingers kept carving down, he looked past the Nightmare at David one last time, anguished, desperate, pleading.

 _You got to,_ David realized, _Ah can’t, but ah have to, because he can’t._ No matter how much worse whatever the Nightmare did to Quentin because of David’s actions was, or how much knowing he'd caused that was going to weigh on David forever, Quentin could live with it, and he couldn’t live with David watching this happen. Meeting Quentin’s eyes, he tried to give him a reassuring smile, but he wasn’t like Ace. He couldn’t do it. This was hell, and he couldn’t fake his way out of that. So David did the best he could manage, and gave Quentin a nod, hoping he would believe this was okay. _I’m fuck’n sorry. I’m so fuck’n—_

David jerked forward and to the side as hard as he could and tore open his throat on the wire. It was the most pain he’d ever felt in his life. Worse than the arm, worse than the chainsaws, worse than being slit open by the Pig, and it was because of the fear—he was afraid to do it, and afraid to die, because he was so _fucking_ scared for Quentin, scared to leave him with that thing, to leave him to be taken apart by it in the worst possible way—to leave him alone. Fear washed over him as the blood poured out over his chest and suddenly, he was gone.

David jerked upright onto his knees with a gasp outside the campfire.

Before he had time to register anything but the presence of the familiar light in the woods, Meg had wrapped her arms around him and was in his lap, shaking.

“David, are you okay?” he heard her muffled voice ask from inside his jacket.

He looked down at himself, trying to tell. _No,_ he thought, looking at the back of Meg’s neck and remembering the way it had felt to choke the life out of her, D _on’t think ah’ll ever be okay._ “Aye,” he said wrapping an arm around her to return the hug. “Been through worse’n that.”

Looking up, David only saw Jake. Which was odd—usually everyone was around the fire.

“We asked them to go,” said Jake, recognizing the look. “So we could talk alone first. Kreuger trial—they understood.” He looked worse for the wear. Even though their wounds had healed, there were bags under Jake’s eyes that hadn’t been there before, and his left eye kept twitching, like it was constantly needing to prove to itself it was still there. Jake moved over and sat beside David and Meg, resting an arm on one knee. Even though he knew they would be back, David couldn’t stop himself from looking to make sure Jake had all his fingers. “Thanks,” added Jake, glancing from David to Meg meaningfully. David nodded.

Meg let go of David and moved between him and Jake, tugging them until she had an arm around each one. They were all quiet for a second then. Just thinking. Occasionally exchanging looks—starting to say something and changing their mind.

“Do you all want to talk about it?” asked Meg after a second, not sounding like she herself really did.

“No,” said Jake and David in unison.

Meg nodded slowly and then moved, propping her feet up on David and putting her head in Jake’s lap, looking up at him. “So, what you did, does this mean I really _was_ your secret crush all along?” she asked, not meaning it.

Jake smirked, but more as the result of trying not to smile and not completely winning than from feeling conceited. “No,” he said, leaning over so his face was about a foot above hers, “But at this point I like you okay.” Jake laid down on his back then, taking in a deep breath of the fall night air. Meg stayed where she was, using his stomach as a pillow.

“I’m sorry,” Meg said after a second. “I freaked out, and he used that.”

“No,” said Jake, almost cutting her off. David could only half-see his face from his position in the grass, but he looked intent, gaze focused up on the night sky. “You’d done that shit before. Next time it happens to me, I won’t be okay either.”

Meg nodded slowly, and they were all quiet again then. Thinking—maybe just breathing again. It was companionable, though, their silence, and a comfort. It stretched on for a long time.

After several minutes, there was a sound like the hiss of a fire, and Quentin stumbled into existence beside them, pitching forward and just barely catching himself on his hands and knees before hitting the ground.

“Quentin!” said, Meg shooting up to a sitting position. Behind her, Jake did the same almost as fast.

“I’m okay,” said Quentin, looking worse than David had ever seen him. He stayed on his hands and knees for a second, trying to regulate his breathing. “Are you all…?” he trailed off, looking over at them, expression full of worry.

Meg nodded, and so did Jake. “We’re a’right,” said David for the group. Quentin met David’s gaze and swallowed, looking miserable again, and pulled himself to a sitting position.

“Was’t worse because…” David trailed off, hand reaching for his throat instinctively, remembering the Nightmare’s words.

“No,” said Quentin, shaking his head. “No. I…Thank you for doing that. It…” His face changed, and for a second David thought he might cry, and his breathing sped up until it was too fast. Quentin stopped talking and put his hands over his face, and for a few seconds he kept them there, breathing so fast David would have reached out to touch him and see if he was alright if he hadn’t been afraid to, and then Quentin’s breathing slowed back down and after another few seconds he lowered the hands. “I’m…I’m so sorry,” he said, looking at all of them, “If I had just figured out a way to kill him back before any of this happened, he never would’ve—”

“—Not your fault,” said Jake, “…And I’m the one who went down first. Besides, we’re all getting used to being carved up out here.”

“That bastard,” said David, almost to himself. “I’d love to rip his arms off and shove’em down ‘is throat.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Meg asked, looking at Quentin. David could tell from the look on her face that she knew he wasn’t. Neither was she—neither were any of them.

“Yeah,” Quentin replied, trying not to show how little he believed the lie himself and too worn down to do it well. “I’m okay. It’s happened before. It’ll happen again.”

They were all quiet for a moment, thinking over their own versions of what that statement meant to them. After a couple of seconds, Meg moved over to be beside Quentin and tucked her knees up to her chest. “What exactly is he?”

“Kreuger?” asked Quentin, a little surprised, “I’m not sure, I guess. He was a regular guy…I—I mean, he was fucking evil, but he was a human anyway, and then he got burned to death and came back as…that. As this thing that’s only real in dreams. I did a lot of research, back before, but not enough.”

“That’s cool. Because I watched a lot of Supernatural, and I’m going to help you find a way to kill him,” said Meg, and looking at her face David believed it. His memories of her trembling beside him were so fresh and overpowering. Seeing her now, voice level and with deadly intent in her eyes, it was almost like looking at a different person. But it wasn’t…it was still just Meg.

“Supernatural?” asked Quentin, “Wasn’t that…like…monster hunting stuff?”

“How is that all you know?” asked Meg, “That show is huge.”

“I-I don’t know, I never saw it,” replied Quentin, looking a little attacked. “You think it’ll actually help?”

 _I’m go’n ta have ta go through life scared,_ David realized slowly, watching them and thinking about Jake hanging from his wrists with one eye, and the look on Quentin’s face when the Nightmare had mentioned his father, the feel of Meg’s throat under his fingers, and the way the Irwell had looked a long time ago. _Maybe all of it ah’ve got left. But that’s what most of ‘em do already, ‘n did before. I won’ leave ‘em ta do it alone now; that’s worse’n bein’ scared. Ah’ll have to learn it, an probably I won’ take to it easy, but fuck if I’m gon’ta let that stop me._

“Aye,” said David, scooting closer himself. “I’m in as well. I can take the normal shit like bein’ eaten by the Hag, or the big’n with the white mask, but the fuck’n minger bastard’s got ta go. Thoughts, Meg?”

“Sounds like a poltergeist; salt and burn the body,” replied Meg without missing a beat.

“Well, that’ll be a problem for us,” replied Quentin, “since his remains are probably in Ohio.”

“What if we kill him here,” interjected Jake, moving closer, “Kill him again, kill this version. We have a lot of salt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a pretty grim chapter. Despite the graphic and dark tone of the whole segment, and while a lot of this was very unpleasant to write, the introduction to David's character (with his backstory) was one of my favorite things I've written recently, and I hope you all enjoyed it and continue to enjoy the story. It was really nice to give David a turn as the pov character. He's got such a unique background, personality, and perk set, and it was fun to work with that and get a chance to explore the character in-depth. Also, this chapter is also a milestone for me as far as story-length goes, so a big thank you both to everyone who has been around since the beginning and new readers. You're all wonderful, and a we're close to the end of an act, so I'm especially excited to continue.
> 
> Also! Made this goofy vine edit to celebrate the length benchmark: http://ziracona.tumblr.com/post/181942697765/when-you-just-wanted-to-come-home-and-eat-your  
> Thanks again to everyone who reads.


	24. A Little Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake come back from a walk and discovers a crisis. Kate has a trial with the Wraith that does not end as expected.

It was nice to be in the woods. Relaxing, quiet, simple. Jake Park had stayed out there alone for hours, finally getting a little bit of peace. In a sense, it would have been nice if the woods stayed the same—if trails could get familiar, and landmarks known, but that wasn’t the case. Sometimes things stayed, maybe for days even, but eventually it would change, like trial areas did. Parts would always be the same, more parts similar, but a lot of it would randomize, like someone had the component parts to a forest and just shook the box full of them every so often to mix it up.

Still, in ways, this was nice too. Jake never ran out of new places to explore. _Wander,_ Jake mentally corrected himself. Exploring was done with the intent of familiarization of terrain, and since that was impossible if it kept changing, “wander” was probably the more accurate description, although he never felt purposeless going through the woods.

Jake had needed this break. It had _maybe_ been a day since the trial with the Nightmare. He was still looking at the fingers of his left hand more often than he needed to, drumming them against trees as he passed, or trailing them along leaves to reassure himself by the sensation that he still had them. He’d lost fingers to the Clown before like everyone else, but this was different. No matter how many times he saw his own reflection, Jake sill kept closing his right eye to test his left’s ability to exist, kept feeling his tongue against the back of his teeth, or whispering nothing to himself to be able to hear himself speak. Jake did all of this because that was easier than thinking about any of the rest of it—treating the symptoms. Despite his best efforts not to think of anything except the woods and where his next footfall would take him, Jake kept finding his mind drawn back to things he had only known without context before. _Ace, Meg, Claudette, Quentin. Before that, Quentin, Nea, Ace, and Dwight. And there was a time before that with Laurie, back before she joined us._ The list echoed around in his head and he tried not to think about it. Things about them, about how they’d acted for days after, sometimes longer…

For about a month Dwight had been clumsy after the one he was in. Like his knee was fucked up, when it wasn’t. It had made him miserable, and he’d died in almost every single trial he’d been in because of it. People had gotten frustrated with him about it too—Jake had gotten frustrated. Dwight had known it, too, that he was screwing things up for everyone, and while Dwight played a decent game when it came to hiding how he felt, Jake had seen how awful it had made him feel.

 _Fuck._ Jake slammed his fist against a tree in the vain hope it would distract him with pain. It didn’t, though. It just hurt in an entirely ignorable way.

Wandering did help. So many mindless tasks that took focus and strength, it was easier not to think things over. For a while, he sat on a huge boulder he’d found deep in the woods and looked up at the sky, wondering about older things than the trials, things he hadn’t thought about since the first few weeks of being in the Entity’s domain…maybe things he’d really never thought before. His mom. His brother. The people who he'd met here, and trying to reconcile the person he used to be with the one he'd become. After awhile he gave up on that and just laid on his back on the rock and thought of nothing but the cold air and the sound of the wind in the leaves. And then, finally, after a long time spent looking up at the starless sky, Jake decided to head back.

As he approached the campfire, Jake knew something was wrong before he could see the others. Even several yards from the tree line, he could hear them. Now, of course, sometimes they were just loud—filming _Welcome to Hell with Meg Thomas,_ or listening to a film be recounted, an incredible escapade from Ace’s past, someone recounting old stories, or a recent trial experience by someone, but they weren’t just being loud right now—they were being frantic. Talking fast, but low and somehow still loud, and everyone over each other.

 _If it’s not one fucking thing, it’s another,_ thought Jake as he broke the tree line and stepped into view.

In truth, he’d already been a little concerned after hearing them, but when he saw the looks on people’s faces, the scale of annoyed to concerned shifted drastically, and he was afraid that something really had gone very wrong. He quickened his pace and hurried up to the group. Kate saw him coming and sprinted to meet him halfway, a handful of the others behind her.

“What happened?” asked Jake as she reached him and grabbed his arm.

“We were in a trial,” Kate started, barely able to get half her answer out before four different people started to explain over each other.

“It’s been way too long, Jake—this is bad—”“—Nobody knows what happened, but they aren’t back and—” “Kate saw Dwight get hit, and they might be dead—shouldn’t he be back if he’s dead though?” “—it’s never been this long before, not even that one time—something’s  wrong! We—"

“—Stop!” snapped Jake, holding up a hand. Nea, Quentin, Feng, and Meg stopped talking. Jake looked from Kate to the crowd behind her. Ace, who had been trying to calm the people around him down enough to let Jake hear one person at a time, gave him a sympathetic look. He looked tense, too, though. Worried. Even Ace. _…No, no. It can’t be that bad,_ Jake tried to reassure himself. “Ace, what happened? And what about Dwight?” asked Jake, making eye contact with him over the rest of the crowd.

“He was in a trial with Kate, Claudette, and Meg,” replied Ace as calmly as he could, while the group around him gave him a little space and quieted down, listening themselves, but still on edge and ready to break back into chaos.  “They had the Wraith, and something went wrong.”

 _Again?_ Jake looked back at Kate, then Meg. Meg was barely keeping it together, and after yesterday Jake understood that completely, so he turned to Kate. “He’s still gone.”

Kate nodded.

“How long has it been?” asked Jake, trying to keep his voice calm and level.

“Two hours,” said Kate.

 _What?_ The surprise registered on his face, and Jake felt the floor drop out beneath him. _Two hours? Two hours after the end of a trial, and Dwight’s still gone?_

“What happened?” asked Jake, grabbing her shoulders on instinct.

“I—I don’t know, exactly. The Wraith—,” Kate responded, looking harried and worried.

“—was he okay?” cut in Jake. “Did he get grabbed like last time?”

“No,” said Meg, shaking her head, “He was on a hook.”

It took Jake a second to respond to that. _On a hook? How the…fuck…there was no way to be on a hook for two hours. He. Fuck!_ Jake’s mind flickered to the other campfires, the ones he used to find before he’d joined the group. _That has to be it. Right? –Just lost, somehow._ He looked again at the faces around him, at the expressions. Nobody was assuming that. They all thought it was worse. _Why?_ That realization filled him with dread. Nothing that had ever happened in the fog was unfixable. That was part of how Jake got through it. He could handle pain, he could bear it, he could keep going. Back when it started, he’d kept to himself, convinced that it would be a lot easier without anyone else to care about. It had been a long time since Jake thought about that—he’d been working with this group of idiots for so long. But suddenly, confronted by a sea of worried faces, Jake was afraid something had happened that was different. That might be harder to fix. _And to Dwight. Jesus Christ, of all the fucking people it had to be him again._

“What happened,” said Jake again, focusing back in on Kate, his voice stern and level and betraying none of the panic that had spread from them into him. “Everyone’s acting like it’s worse. What’s worse.”

“The Wraith was wild again, like before,” answered Kate, “all of us ended up in the basement. We tried pleading with him, and nothing was working. Dwight and I were on hooks, Meg was gone already, and he was going to hook Claudette, and something happened—I—I don’t know what, but,”

 “Kate thinks it was almost like he was disoriented, and that he and Dwight got sacrificed together,” said Meg, miserable. “We tried to jog his memory and that’s what did it—we fucked up.”

“Oh, you think?” asked Jake, whirling on her on impulse. Seeing the look on her face, he relented a little, feeling guilty even against the anxiety in his chest. “Look,” he said, tone calmer, “I was fine with all of this shit with the Wraith because it didn’t affect me, and it wasn’t causing trouble, but it’s gone way too far.”

“Shit with the Wraith?” asked Laurie from a few feet behind Meg.

Jake walked through the crowd and to the campfire and picked up one of several makeshift wood spears he’d carved in his free time.

“What are you doing?” asked Nea, trailing after him.

“Me? No, we— _we_ are going after him,” said Jake, turning to face the others. “Because I didn’t come here to watch Dwight die because you all decided to make bad decisions.”

“What bad decisions?” said Laurie, moving up beside Nea.

“How are we going to go after him?” asked Feng.

Jake gestured to the woods. Everyone turned to look at it, then back at him.

“Are….but Jake, that’s crazy,” said Feng, “We can’t go in there. We’ll get lost, and we don’t even know if it connects to the Killer’s areas. And if it does…Jake, if it does that means _it connects to the Killers’ areas._ ”

“Yeah, well,” Jake replied, tossing Feng a sharpened wood stick which she caught and looked down at in surprise, “They should have thought of that before they kept fucking with the Wraith.”

“What are you talking about—what fucking with the Wraith?” asked Laurie again, “You mean the way Meg runs around taunting him?”

“No,” said Kate quietly, “We’ve been trying to talk to him again.”

Laurie gave her a disbelieving look.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” asked Feng, holding up the makeshift spear, “You know nothing really works against killers, right?”

Jake held out his hand. “Okay, give it back then.”

She pulled the spear closer to her chest and clung to it.

“Can I have one?” asked Nea.

Jake tossed her one. Nea held it out and looked at it in admiration.

“You said the last you saw, he got hooked and sacrificed in the basement?” Jake asked, glancing at Kate.

She nodded.  “’Least I think so—I died right in the middle of it, so, I didn’t see everythin’.”

“Then to the best of our knowledge, the trial is gone, which means they either ended up at one of the other campfires,” continued Jake, tossing a stake of more knife length than spear to Laurie, who caught it automatically, “or they went wherever killers go after trials. Either way, woods are our best bet.”

“Are you sure about this?” asked Nea, moving over to help Jake pass out various sharpened pieces of wood, “I mean, I’m down to go—but if they’re just at another campfire, then wouldn’t it mean we just have to grab them next time we’re in the same trial?”

“Not taking the chance,” replied Jake, standing up. He paused, mid-motion, and looked down at her. “’They’?”

“Claudette didn’t come back either,” came Meg’s voice at almost a whisper from a few feet away.

 _Fucking wonderful. The nice one too._ “Okay,” said Jake calmly, turning to the others. “Meg and I know the woods the best. Laurie’s capable, and Nea’s the least likely to get caught if we go somewhere we shouldn’t. You three, pick the people you think most likely to get lost and bring them with you. We’re going in groups of two. Someone’ll do three. At least one person in every group needs to know how to fight, or I’m vetoing. Kate, you’re with me, because I need to hear the whole story and I can’t take Meg.”

“Then I’ll take Ace,” said Meg quickly, linking her arm with his.

“You realize that no matter what happens, that makes you the weakest team,” asked Jake.

“I mean, very rude,” Meg replied looking up at Ace, who put his hand to his heart and gave her a playfully offended expression, “But go off I guess.”

Nea and Feng glanced at each other.

“Feng and I’ll take Quentin,” said Nea, raising her hand.

Quentin looked surprised.

“That sounds fine,” replied Jake, turning to Nea, “He can make sure you two stay focused.”

“Hey! Just because we’re dating doesn’t mean—” Nea stopped as Jake gave her a _does it though?_ look, “Okay, normally I see where you’re coming from, but this is mom and dad we’re worried about. But fine, whatever, Quentin’ll be there, and you don’t have to worry about us.”

“Then that means David and me,” finished Laurie, looking over at David in the way two people chosen last for sports teams do, which he returned with an awkward _guess it’s us_ attempt at a smile.

“Easily the strongest team,” Meg commented absently. “Sorry,” she hurriedly added to Ace, “Jake got my mind there and now it won’t come back.”

“I can live with this,” said Jake, moving to the middle of the group. “Okay. Here’s the plan. I’m heading north, Meg you go running west most often, so you all go west, Nea, you guys take east, Laurie, head south. If you don’t find anything, head back after six hours. _Do not_ get lost. Mark your trail periodically, and both of you have to pay attention to where you are, because if someone gets pulled into a trial and you lose them, you’ll have to find the way back on your own. Okay?”

“Wait,” interrupted Feng, “What do we do if we actually _find_ a killer.”

“Do what we always do,” replied Jake, “Sneak.”

“This isn’t a great plan,” said Kate cautiously, “We ain’t thought it out very well. I mean, I wanna find them and I think we should go look for sure, but shouldn’t we work out what we’re doin’ a little more before running off in all directions? We might just make it worse, like this.”

“No one has to do anything. I’m going, come or don’t,” replied Jake, picking up his walking stick sized spear and heading north towards the edge of the forest without looking back.

“It’ll be fine,” Meg said reassuringly, putting a hand on Kate’s shoulder. “I’ve run all over these woods. It’s easy to tell when you’re getting close to something alive—you hear it. Just do what Jake says and stick together. We’re all seasoned survivors. We can work it out. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even find Trap and Adam out there.”

“It’s Tapp, but okay,” Kate said, taking a deep breath. She looked around at the mixture of concerned, tense, and excited expressions about her. “Y’all just…be safe, please? And smart?”

There was a consensus of nods and sounds of agreement, a few waves and “good luck”s, and they split off. Ace gave a little _After You_ bow and followed Meg west into the dense forest, Feng and Nea headed off east, Quentin hurrying to catch up after pausing to grab his medkit from by the campfire, and Laurie and David side-by-side, armed, and looking dangerous went south.

As the others vanished, Kate turned and sprinted after Jake, catching up to him just inside the tree line.

“So,” Jake said, scanning the terrain for a second before picking a direction just a little left of true north and starting off, “Tell me everything.”

 

* * *

 

 

 _Ah, the treatment ward. My least favorite place to hunt down generators, my favorite to run into boys with chainsaws,_ thought Kate, watching a static filled screen above her flicker as the trial began. _Nothin’ for it._

Slowly creeping along, Kate lifted herself over a low windowsill and past a soda machine, wishing in passing she could actually get a soda out of it. _Simple things in life ya miss most._ Well, not really, but they were a lot more fun to dwell on. And damn if some cold pop wouldn’t have made her feel better about life for a few seconds.

Ahead of her, Dwight stuck his head in the doorway, looking for her. As soon as he saw her, he motioned her to follow, and she did. _Thank god someone ain’t lost._

He moved past the hall into a second room, one with a generator, and motioned to it. She nodded and joined him, and together they got to work.

“Any idea who?” Kate mouthed. Dwight shook his head and shrugged.

 _Maybe it’ll be the Wraith,_ Kate hoped. She and Dwight had still been getting short-changed on that, but Claudette had been picked up too, and she’d been in trials with him a few times since their plan went into action. In the back of her head, Kate kept silently hoping the fourth would be one of the two new guys, Tapp or Adam. Mostly because if it wasn’t, then it would be Quentin or Meg, who’d both been through hell in a Kreguer trial the day before. Most of them had been around the campfire, but Quentin had been off alone, and Meg was off jogging, and since their fourth hadn’t been in her line of sight when she’d vanished, then if it wasn’t one of the new guys, it would be one of them. They really didn’t need that, no matter what killer. They needed a break.

Back home in Pennsylvania, Kate had had a little brother named Aiden. It was a pretty big age gap—five years, but they’d still been close. She’d been the responsible friend in high school until Angel Watts had transferred in and become their very voluntary team mom who brought them food and germ x and always had ibuprofen in her purse. Later in life, a musician on the road she’d often ended up the designated driver after festivals. One of her favorite memories was of a party back in Lexington, after a concert. She’d been with a few fellow singers who’d worked the same festival as her—all of them had been bunking at the same hotel across town. There were three boys with her, Alvin, who looked like a bear and remembered every nice thing you’d ever said to him when sloshed, Trey, who got happy and quiet and was one drink shy of comatose, and Dev, who really wanted to try standup improv after a few shots of tequila. They’d left the party after hours of karaoke, dancing badly (except for Dev) in an apartment kitchen, and Kate trying first to teach—and then after realizing what a terrible decision that had been—desperately _not_ to teach drunk boys how to play bishop with a pocket knife, long talks about dreams and memories, and the realization their college friend-turned-agent Daniel looked almost uncannily like Kenny Loggins. By that time, everyone but her had been too drunk to get behind the wheel, so she’d insisted that as their designated driver she ferry people home. On their way out, Alvin had warned her that he was going to have to go slow because he might fall over and to make sure not to lose him, and she’d told him not to worry. That she was like an NPC you have to follow in a video game quest, and could only go a certain distance ahead. He’d gotten the biggest eyes and the most excited expression on his face and drunkenly told the other guys to stop walking and see how far she could go, and Kate had gone about ten feet in her best NPC posture and turned and waited for them, and Alvin’s face had lit up with delight. She and the three sloshed men had played the NPC quest-follow all the way past four other apartments to her car in the distant guest parking lot, and everyone but Dev, who stayed up to play _Meant to Live_ on repeat, fell asleep in the car long before reaching their hotel. 

That night had made Kate so happy. As much as she loved to sing, the music business was full of people who were bad, plain and simple. It was nice to see that when three of the men in her field she’d thought of as casual friends got absolutely waisted at a party, they became soft, friendly, goofy, and wouldn’t shut up about the cinematic genius of _Galaxy Quest._ It had been right near the start of her real music career, and she had so much faith in people and hope for the world, but she’d also lived there. Nobody with eyes living on this earth could pretend things were really all good, and music was her life and her love, but also a little daunting. Meeting so many people at the festival, talking to agents, hearing stories from older people in the field? And then, after all that little doubt had accumulated inside her? Of all the wonders in the world, three drunk guys in a parking lot made it better. That had been the inspiration for one of her first released singles.

_Human behind these inhibitions,_

_a little closer to what we all believed in._

_I_ _t’s nothing special? No, it’s the world to me._

_I like to find the secret that you hid is that you were afraid to show deep within,_

_oh, how good you are to me._

_There’s still something to hope for, beyond all the day to day strife,_

_feeling so run down and lost in this life._

_Mmmh, but aren't we just a little better than what they say?_

_S_ _o, thanks to you and this little nothin’ at all, I know now for sure there’s still a way._

She’d called the song _Little Things in Life,_ and ever since coming here, to the Entity’s realm, she’d seen that again and again. Small things. Every time she thought it was hopeless, something would surprise her. Tiny stuff—like Nea taking lessons from Claudette so she could make Feng a dessert she’d mentioned once in passing, and Feng staring at it like the fairly mediocre creation was the most beautiful thing on God’s earth, or Laurie going to Quentin for a four hour discussion on bands she’d never even heard because she could tell he was down, or that one time Jake, who she’d never though had even liked her, had come over to her when she was alone and asked her to sing. Kate often thought afterword that calling the song “Little Things in Life” was the wrong choice, because the gestures might seem small, but the point had been that they weren’t. It was like finding a bottle of cold water in the middle of the desert—who cared if it was one bottle? The miracle was cold water, where it shouldn’t have been able to survive. She’d thought maybe even just from an aesthetic standpoint just _Little Things_ would have been a better choice, but she hadn’t really ever been able to put her finger on a fitting title for the song, so she’d left it the way it was, though she’d considered calling it a handful of other things.

Being in the Entity’s realm was hard on Kate. That seemed like a stupid thing to say, because it had been hard on everyone, but most people probably couldn’t tell how hard it was. Kate acted a good game, and in truth she believed in it—believed that they would get out, that things would be okay someday, but at the same time, Kate missed her mom and her dad and her little brother. More than that, she was a little older than a decent handful of the others, and she felt responsible for them. Maybe that was because it was a position she’d often drifted into in life and she’d learned it, or maybe her default psychological response to loving someone was just to try and put herself between them and bad things, even when it was stupid, or maybe she felt like she was fresh and just had the energy the others didn’t—like she was relieving someone’s post. Whatever the truth was, Kate tried her best to get to know the others, and to look out for them. She wasn’t always good at that, or at showing them support, but she tried. Hard.

Kate was one of the lucky last few to have not been grabbed during one of the especially awful Krueger trials, and it made her feel guilty—like her good fortune was part of their bad. Even though she’d never been dragged into one, she knew how rough these things were on people—not firsthand of course, but last time she’d seen the way people acted for days—weeks after. She had wanted so badly to be able to help, and she hadn’t. She’d spent time gardening with Claudette and singing old Beach Boys songs, and tried to learn medicine tips from Quentin, and helped Meg stage videos, but she could tell she wasn’t healing anything. She had tried to help out Ace, too, but he’d seen right through her sudden interest in his old stories and redirected her to one of the younger members. Kate wasn’t so easily defeated and had made Ace come along with her to tell stories anyway, and afterword he’d seemed a little better. But it was so close to nothing. It felt worthless.

God willing, the four who’d just been in the Krueger trial would get a little break. Quentin was a good kid—she should probably stop calling him that, though. Like her brother, he was older than she was giving him credit for. And always so earnest. Trying his best to do everything possible while living like a broke college student two days before midterms. And Meg—she was half the reason they were as sane as they were, after all of this. She’d become the distraction and the fun people needed—a walking vaudeville. Just being around her made people happy, but as someone who had lived similarly, Kate knew just how tired that could make you—raising everyone else’s spirits all the time. When you crashed, you crashed hard, because you had never had plans in place to catch yourself.  The Wraith had been a good thing for all of them recently, and everyone was doing their best, but as she and Dwight sped through the generator, she _prayed_ that Meg and Quentin weren’t here, and wouldn’t end up in a trial for as long as possible.

Their generator lit, and Kate and Dwight booked it in an awkward medium speed mix of fast and careful, weaving through rooms.

“Oh! I see them,” whispered Dwight, pointing through a wall. “Both together, on a gen.”

 _Damn, wish I could do that,_ Kate thought with a sigh. It would have been really nice to be able to sense other people’s presence. The number of times she’d accidentally led a killer right on top of a friend during a chase because she’d had no idea they were there was…not fun to think about.

Together, Dwight and Kate slipped into the room. Kate’s heart fell a little as she saw Meg Thomas turn around and grin at her and Dwight before turning back to the gen she was on with Claudette. ‘ _Least she seems ok,_ Kate tried to console herself. She always did seem to bounce back. The generator was already close to done, and as Dwight and Kate joined the other two, it only took a few seconds for the thing to light.

As it lit, the sound of the generator mixed with the all-too-familiar sound of the wailing bell as the Wraith materialized behind them.

There was a terrible moment of indecision as Kate’s heart lurched and she tried to figure out if this was something to be happy about or terrified of. After all, four of their five-person team, right here. On the other hand.

She looked up. The Wrath was _so tall_. She always forgot that, but he was massive.

“Mike?” asked Meg excitedly, grinning up at the Wraith as he appeared.

The Wraith brought his sickle down across Meg’s face and the smile disappeared as she fell back with a cry, blood pouring from her forehead.

 _Oh no,_ thought Kate in a frozen panic, _Oh no, it’s happened again, hasn’t it?_

Dwight ducked as the sickle carved down again and the blade hit Kate in the arm. She recoiled and lept a windowsill, looking desperately up and down the hall for some way to circle back in and help Meg without being spotted, clutching her own torn arm as she did. Inside the room, she heard the sound of a thud as someone dropped a pallet, and then Claudette cry out.

A memory pulled itself to the front of Kate’s mind, from not that long ago. Sitting by a generator, Backwater Swamp. The way the Wraith had looked when he materialized. Usually the reaper hunted them in a way you would describe _as_ hunting. For him, more work than sport. Motions followed, actions taken. That day, he’d come at her like a killer. Like she remembered from the one time she’d been attacked back in the real world, by a man in an alley way outside a bar. The Wraith had had anger in its eyes, like she’d done something unforgivable, and it had wanted to _hurt_ her. It had wanted it badly. The rage had been overwhelming, and she’d been terrified. It was usually so calm, the Wraith—one of the only ones who never stabbed you for the fun of it if you were up on a hook, or just hurt you to hurt you. It was like being chased by something supernatural. And then, suddenly, in the swamp, she’d been terrified of it in an entirely new way. And he’d gotten her, fast. Grabbed her shirt and rammed her against the side of a log wall, dug his sickle into her shoulder, thrown her to the ground. When she’d been there she’d tried to crawl away from him, fingernails digging into the dirt, and he’d dragged her back and hit her, over and over, his blade driving in like the back of a hammer, prongs hooking and tearing, and all the while she’d been overwhelmed with fear from how much this man _wanted_ to kill her. Her personally. And he had, helpless beneath his feet. The second she’d met his eyes in there, it was _exactly_ what he’d looked like. Nothing but rage.

“Jesus Christ,” she whispered more as a plea than an expletive, rounding the far corner of the room and looking in. She hadn’t been quick enough.

Before her, the Wraith had backed Meg into a corner. She had a hand up like she could shield herself from him, and the other was trying to staunch the blood that was streaming down her face.

“Wait!” said Meg, trying to put on bravado, “If it’s not Mike, you could have just said so.”

There was fear behind the tone though, and she flinched before the sickle connected with her chest, digging in hard. The towering man tore his blade free and Kate heard Meg scream, then he reached down and picked her up and flung her over his shoulder.

As he moved out of the room, Kate had just barely made out Meg’s weak voice saying, “You forgot me again, huh?”

 _She sounded…sad,_ thought Kate, moving quickly after them, _No. Worse._

As the Wraith moved through a doorway, Kate realized where he was taking her. The steps to the basement.

“Hey!” shouted Kate.

He turned to look, glowing white eyes like embers of hate narrowed in her direction with a look that sent shivers down her spine, then he turned and kept walking towards the basement.

 _Damn it!_ Kate ran and lept, taking the six-foot fall onto the basement landing to get in front of him, and tried to block his path.

“Let her go!” shouted Kate, kicking him in the shins, “She’s your friend and you forgot again and you’re hurting her feelings!” Logically, Kate knew that he was almost certain to neither listen nor care, but if she’d been him and someone had said that, it would have at least made her confused.

The Wraith swung his sickle with his free hand, and Kate dodged out of the way, stumbling a little on a step as she did. He swung again, faster and more angry, and she just barely ducked, watching as a tiny chunk of her hair fell to the floor. Without warning, the Wraith’s foot shot out and caught her in the chest, sending her flying against the lockers at the base of the stairs. She impacted so hard that the locker dented, and she knew trying to pull herself up that at least two ribs were either broken or bruised.

Dropping Meg on the ground, the Wraith walked over to her and grabbed Kate by the hair, wrenching her upright ramming her hard against a hook. She felt it tear through her back and screamed, the white-hot pain of the basement hook temporarily making her vision black out. As soon as she could focus again, Kate looked for Meg. The Wraith was above her again, reaching down to grab her by her throat.

“You don’t remember any of it?” Kate heard Meg ask weakly. His fingers closed around her neck and he lifted her into the air, running her through the hook beside Kate without a second thought.

He vanished then, disappearing back up the stairs, leaving Kate and Meg alone.

“Are you okay?” asked Kate, looking at Meg’s mangled face and chest. The wound had torn her open deep enough that Kate could see the white bone of a rib.

There was no reply. Meg just stared forward. _Shit._ “Meg?” asked Kate again, voice failing to contain the worry she felt.

“I guessed it,” Meg said after a second, head hanging limp, watching blood drip from her forehead onto the ground below.

“You guessed it?” asked Kate, struggling to focus on her friend instead of the pain in her chest.

“His name. I know it was one of the ones I said, but I didn’t get to ask him which one,” she replied, her voice flat. Kate didn’t know what to say, so it was quiet again, and then Meg spoke. “I must have guessed about eight hundred names. I’ll have to start over,” she looked at Kate, “Do you think he’ll ever remember?”

Kate looked at Meg’s torn face and her fragile expression and nodded.

There was a little thud as Dwight took the same six-foot fall Kate had and rushed down the stairs, grabbing Meg and lifting her free in one swift motion. _Thank god._

Just above them, they heard the _bing-bong_ of the wailing bell, and suddenly the Wraith was there, on the stairs. Dwight tried to reach Kate, but the Wraith grabbed him by his collar and threw him at the wall, whirling on Meg and catching her in the back as she tried to run.

“You don’t remember,” Meg said from the ground as the Wraith bent down and grabbed her, voice pleading, “But we were friends—I’ve been trying to guess your name, and Claudette keeps bringing you flowers, and you keep forgetting because of something the Entity does!”

The Wraith slammed her back onto her hook and she let out a scream of pain. He’d let it carve a second hole through her torso, instead of re-hooking her through the same wound. Meg stared down at it and the open hole through her beside it in horror and then the thorny black talons burned into existence beside her and she was struggling to fight them back.

“Listen to me!” called Meg as the Wraith walked over to Dwight and its sickle dug into his arm as he tried to shield himself from the blow. “You don’t like being taunted but you warm up to it, and I’m Meg Thomas, and we’re kind of frenemies at this point! The girl is Kate Denson, and you haven’t seen her as much, but she sings like an angel and even you would like it, and the guy you’re trying to kill is Dwight Farfield and you like him! You saved his life and took him off a hook once because you wanted to know the truth about what you kept forgetting because you found some bandages you couldn’t explain!”

The towering man didn’t even turn to look, didn’t hesitate. It reached down and tore Dwight from the dent he’d left in the wall, and Kate heard him cry out in pain as he was moved, his left arm hanging awkwardly, and then it ran him through the third hook, rung the wailing bell, and was gone.

“Fuck! Come back here, you jackass!” Meg called after him, struggling with the claws.

“I-It’s okay,” said Dwight, gritting his teeth, “We’ve seen him like this before. It might take some time, but we’ll get back to where we were.”

“And then what?” shot back Meg, arms strained with the tension of holding back the huge obsidian spike leveled at her chest, voice starting to break a little, “He’ll forget again! Over and over.”

Above them and a ways off, they heard a cry. _Claudette._

“How the fuck does he keep finding us so fast!” Meg spat. Kate could see the struggle for her was going to be a losing one, and very soon. She could feel herself starting to get weak, and there was the slow crackling sound as claws began to materialize around her, too. In a moment, she’d be doing the same thing.

“We’ll be more careful,” Kate said, trying to sound reassuring. She wasn’t as sure. She didn’t know if the others had noticed the change in the Wraith—the anger, the way he looked like he wanted nothing more than to snap your neck, but she wasn’t about to bring it up if they hadn’t.

Around Dwight, talons slowly started to burn into existence as Kate began her struggle against the Entity’s claws, and then there was a little thud, and Claudette made the six-foot drop, clutching a wounded shoulder, finger to her lips.

Meg’s face lit up. Claudette dashed to her side and lifted her free of the hook, running to Kate the second Meg was free. Meg was stumbling over to Dwight and Claudette’s hands were on Kate’s waist, starting to raise her up, when they heard the wailing bell on the base of the stairs and the ambient horror of a killer approaching washed over them. Claudette tried to get Kate free before he reached them, but the Wraith’s fingers closed around Claudette’s shirt and he tore her backwards and threw her to the ground. She made contact with the pavement and skidded along it with the force of the throw, impacting into the back wall at an angle. The Wraith turned on Meg and brought his sickle down hard into her back and she crumpled beside Dwight, screaming as the blade lodged in her shoulder.

The Wraith loomed over her, looking down at the torn and bloodied girl at his feet. He paused for a moment, glancing in Claudette’s direction with his cold, glowing white eyes. She was weakly trying to pull herself up to her elbows and failing, so the Wraith turned its attention back to Meg.

“Please!” Meg begged, looking up at him, curled on her side in a pool of her own blood, “You have to listen to me! I don’t want this to all be for nothing—I can’t do that—I can’t do it again. You know us—you were getting to know us!”

“She’s right!” Kate shouted, struggling against the claw at her chest with everything she had.

The Wraith ignored them both, stooping to pick up Meg. He grabbed her throat and lifted her into the air, easily carrying her back to her hook for the last time.

“You stupid jerk!” Meg choked out, kicking at him and trying to pry his fingers from her throat, “You disappear and come back with new scars acting different, but you have to remember us! You knew us!”

“Don’t you remember her at all?” Dwight shouted, face clearly showing worry at the desperation in Meg’s voice.

“You have to remember, something has to be different for once! We played a game where I guessed your name and you hated it,” Meg said, faster and faster and voice more and more frantic as the Wraith lifted her above the hook, “And Quentin kept trying to make friends with you, and the girl you just threw into a wall was the first one to think you weren’t a monster! Her name is Claudette—”

The Wraith ran her through the hook and the Entity’s claws immediately snapped shut around her, impaling her against their points. Kate heard Dwight shout her name as she screamed. Then it was over, and Meg’s body shuddered and she went limp and her form started to fade as the claws around her lowered until they encased her, and the thing in the sky drew up her husk and she was gone.

 _Shit. Shit—Meg._ Kate looked at Dwight, and he looked at her. Both panicked, sad. This wasn’t really such a setback—they’d known it might happen, but it felt like a huge loss. After the past week, after everything?

Not giving Meg’s husk a second look, the Wraith turned and stalked over to Claudette. She’d managed to pull herself to her knees, and as she saw him coming she crawled backwards away from him until he had her in a corner and she had nowhere to go.

“W-wait,” Claudette stuttered, back pressed against the far wall.

“Leave her alone!” Dwight shouted, trying to continue for Meg, “You know her! She helped you!”

“You saved me,” Claudette said, voice timid and faint, like she was afraid she would say the wrong thing. “Please—you aren’t like this, you’re good.”

The Wraith grabbed her, and she tried to pull away weakly, letting out a scared cry, but he lifted her easily and flung her over a shoulder, then turned towards the last hook.

“Her name is Claudette!” Kate called, feeling herself losing strength against the claws around her.

“She’s Claudette Morel, and you know her!” Dwight added, “You have to remember _something._ ”

The Wraith hesitated. It stood in front of the hook, Claudette still over its shoulder, and slowly turned to look at Dwight for a second. Then it shifted Claudette from its shoulder and into its hands to hook her, and it stopped again, looking at her as she stared back with big eyes, somehow hopeful and terrified all at once, and Kate saw a flicker in the Wraith’s eyes for just a moment.

 _Damn it!_ Kate thought, barely managing to stave off a particularly strong thrust of the claw from digging through her ribs. Dwight didn’t have more than a few seconds left before he’d begin struggling too. _It-it’ll be okay. We just gotta restart and be more careful this time’n it’ll go okay, I know we can._

“The first time you let us go it was me and him,” Claudette said, her voice still small and scared as the Wraith stared at her, and she pointed to Dwight with her wrist since her arms were pinned to her sides. “Try to remember, please.”

Its eyes went white-hot again, and flickered, and then repeated the process, and it took a step over in front of Dwight cautiously, almost disoriented, like it was trying to get a good look at him and having some trouble. As it looked, the talons around Dwight solidified, and Kate saw the claw that he would soon be struggling against at his waist arc back above his head to try and run him through and as it did, the Wraith took another step, right between him and it, oblivious, still holding onto Claudette. She saw Claudette, who was facing the claw, see it coming and scream, and the Wraith jumped and turned to look as the claw shot down at its chest and Dwight behind it, and then Kate had lost her focus on her own struggle, and the talon she’d been keeping at bay had run her through.

She’d burned back into existence standing by the campfire, frozen, eyes wide. It had taken her a second to be aware of Meg tugging on her arm asking what had happened.

“Uh,” Kate had said, “Ah—ah think Claudette, Dwight, and the Wraith just all got killed…by the same claw.

Meg blinked. “I’m sorry, they what?”

She had explained, to everyone, what she’d seen—her last memory an image of the Entity’s claw swinging full speed, just an inch from running the Wraith though. And they’d waited, some confused and concerned, a small handful horrified at the possibility they had just killed the Wraith, for Claudette and Dwight to return, sacrificed. But they hadn’t. Minutes dragged on to ten, then twenty, then forty, and everyone started to get really, really scared.

By the time Jake appeared at the edge of the woods and it had been two hours, no one knew what to do, and everyone was deeply afraid that this time, something that couldn’t be set back to the way it was before had changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun trivia: Kate is the only survivor to have canonically taken a shot at the Entity. With a rock, but still. Technically survived one v one combat with the biggest bad.
> 
> Thanks to all the long-time readers and new--your comments mean the world, and I sincerely appreciate you. I hope you continue to enjoy. A lot of important changes in the story soon, as well as an act end, so I'm very excited.


	25. Shrouded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dwight and Claudette try to figure out how to get home and keep the Wraith alive. The rest of the Survivors split up and race to find them. For the first time outside a trial, things go from dangerous to deadly.

 

“You disappear and come back with new scars acting different, but you have to remember us! You knew us!”

Meg’s voice came in foggy as Claudette tried to shake it off and get to her feet. She had to get to her feet—she had to get up! If she didn’t, Meg would…

“Don’t you remember her at all?”

It wasn’t enough. As Claudette’s arm muscles gave out and she felt pain ripple through them again as she hit the floor, she could hear Dwight shouting. _Please, please,_ thought Claudette, fighting again to make it to her feet. She pulled herself to her knees and saw the Wrath dragging Meg by the throat back to the hook she’d jus been on. _Please, you have to remember!_

She tried to cry out, to say that out loud, but when she opened her mouth there was no sound. Claudette lost her voice to a flood of memories, Nea, and Kate, and then David right at her feet, and she couldn’t move. _No! No, you can’t do this—you can’t freak out now!_ But the fear rolled over her like wave and drowned her in itself.

“We played a game where I guessed your name and you hated it, and Quentin kept trying to make friends with you, and the girl you just threw into a wall was the first one to think you weren’t a monster! Her name is Claudette—”

Meg’s voice was cut off as the Wraith ran her through the hook and the Entity’s claws snapped shut around her, killing her, and Claudette flinched as she heard Dwight scream Meg’s name. _No. No, no, no, not again._

Things had been looking up for them and suddenly everything was all wrong. She was trying her best to shake it off and look at this the way she had before, but no one was doing well right now. The Krueger trial the day before had been hell for the people in it, and she hadn’t been one of them, but knowing it had happened had brought back memories she had fought so hard to forget. Memories of the last time. The time it had been her. Remembering that made everything that walked towards her in the mist something beyond monstrous—too far from human to ever come back, and she was scared. _It’s…it’s different, it’s the Wraith. The Wraith isn’t like the others._ She tried so hard to believe it, but her heart was pounding in her chest and things she didn’t want to think about were fighting harder and harder to get in. It wasn’t that the Wraith was killing them. He was different again, like she’d only ever seen once before. Vicious, and fast, and brutal. And worse, angry. Angry with a low, boiling rage. When he’d met her eyes for a second after ambushing them all by the generator, it had been like there was nothing inside him anymore except hatred. That had made her so scared.

He turned then, the Wraith, and looked at her from across the room. The look sent a shudder down her spine, like looking at death itself, and Claudette was overcome with the fear that he was going to kill her like he had before—torn apart, blow after blow, like firewood. It had been a long time since she’d seen him and thought of him as an ‘it’, as a monster, like the other killers, but as it came for her she crawled backwards on instinct, trying desperately to get away. So afraid, it was all she could do.

It stalked forward, relentless, radiating hate, eyes fastened on her like she was already dead at its feet, and her back hit a wall. “W-wait,” Claudette managed, looking up into the thing’s face with some faint, desperate hope of finding any trace of the person she’d been trying to get close to for days still inside.

It raised its sickle to strike her and she was suddenly seeing a different day, years ago. She was standing alone, in a cornfield. Everything had made her so scared—the darkness, the wind, the fog, the way everything was huge and expansive and open, and still somehow felt like a cage. The ash in the air. She’d been on a bus from Toronto, going home, going to see family for a long weekend. Paused between stops for a quick walk in the woods—hoping to stretch her legs, take pictures of some flora, smell air that wasn’t like city air. It had been such a nice, simple thing to do. And then, she’d been taken. Engulfed in a wood that went on and on and got cold and dark, and thick with fog. Lost, and alone, and she’d ended up suddenly somewhere else. Disoriented. Staring down at arms and legs that flickered like embers as they solidified, but didn’t hurt, afraid something was wrong with her head, because there was no way this could be real, right? As the embers on her skin faded, she had heard a terrible moaning sound and turned to look, and she had seen nothing moving, nothing alive as she turned, but when she had seen what _was_ there, her heart had sped up with panic and she had been too afraid to scream. There had been a massive tree behind her, and dead animals hung from it. Animals that had been lacerated and torn, hung in the tree by hooks and rope and chain. Cows, and they were dead—they had to be, some were just tissue and blood, and yet the sound seemed to be coming from them.

She had stumbled back from the sight, hand over her mouth, and fallen backwards over a low stone wall onto her back, hard. This towering tree of sacrificed, moaning animals looming over her, she had been too petrified to stand, and she had tried to crawl back from it, overcome with horror, and then there had been the sound of a bell, right behind her, and she’d looked up and seen a thing burn into existence above her.

It had looked like a man—at first she had thought it was a man, and that she was sick, or hallucinating, or dreaming. Feet, hands, legs like her own. She had been so scared, and she had wanted it to be a dream so badly, for a moment she had started to whisper “Dad?” in a panicked, half-choked voice, pulling herself around to face him and pleading inside that somehow, some way, this was a nightmare, and he had come to wake her up.

But as the man above her bent down to look at her, she had known it wasn’t. That he looked nothing like her father. And his head—his head was wrong, it was covered in a mask like mud, and his eyes glowed. She had been too afraid to run from him. Claudette had stared back at him, chest rising and falling in terrified, shallow breaths, and then he’d moved his hand and she’d seen what he was holding.

“No! No, no, no—please! Please don’t hurt me!” The wickedly sharp metal prongs of something between a scythe and a club sparkled in the moonlight as he had raised a weapon made of someone’s skull and spine and wickedly sharp blades, already spattered with blood.  Claudette had started to cry, curling up and making herself as small as possible, doing her best to cover her head with her arms. “Please, please—I don’t know who you are; I don’t know where I am! Please don’t kill me!”

She had never been so scared, not of anything, and there had been almost no sound as the huge man above her had taken two steps forward and stooped down beside her.

The man was so much bigger than her, and specked with blood, but his movements had been so steady and calm, and he had lowered the blade back to his side as he knelt, and for a moment, Claudette had almost thought he wasn’t going to hurt her. But he had. A hand that was rough and coarse from scars and work had reached past the arms she was trying to shield her head with and grabbed her by the throat, and with one motion he had stood, dragging her up with him and lifting her up into the air. She had tried to scream and struggle, tried to pry his fingers off, but she had failed. Lifted into the air, fighting to breathe, face streaked with tears, she’d looked down at the Wraith as he looked up at her, his eyes glowing white, his face expressionless. She had been carried a few steps over towards a towering metal hook, and her mind had flashed to the animals in the tree and understood what was about to happen before it had.

“No, please—please don’t,” she had managed to get out past tears. She had been so helpless, so scared, so lost and alone. “I don’t want to die. Please.” So terrified the words had been whispered, quiet, not screams.  “I want to go home.”

The hulking, shadowy thing that wasn’t a man had looked into her face and felt nothing. It had looked back at her with no pity, no sympathy, no hesitation, or regret. Not even malice. Then it had run her through the metal hook, and the indescribably awful sensation of having a jagged metal rod tear through your body had shot through her for the very first time, and she had been left to hang beneath the tree full of dead cows, just another sacrifice. No explanation, no comfort, nothing but confusion and fear and anguish. The man hadn’t even looked back.

“Leave her alone! You know her! She helped you!”

Dwight’s voice dragged her back out of the flood of images and fears, but she was still seeing the cornfield as she looked up at the Wraith again, arm raised to strike her down. So much like the first time she had seen him.

 _Helped him? He…he helped me…helped me first._ The thought fought back some of the terror, and she tried to find her voice. “You…saved me,” Claudette offered, voice almost a whisper, so afraid she would do something wrong. Afraid of the Wraith. It looked down at her, eyes narrowed, and for some reason that had reassured her, because at least that was an emotion—it looked like anger. Distrust. _That’s right, he’s like a person. It was just hard to get to him. But he’s not bad. I-I can do this. I wasn’t wrong._ “Please,” Claudette continued, thinking about clover chains and the look on his face when he hadn’t wanted to take the gauze roll from her, “You aren’t like this; you’re good.”

For a moment, she thought she saw his eyes flicker, but then the steady glow was back and it closed the distance between them. On instinct, Claudette had put her arms over her head like before, and the Wraith hesitated. Through her arms she saw him lower his sickle and go to grab her instead. Not her throat, though, like usual—he went for her arm, and as his fingers closed around her forearm, she let out an involuntarily cry and tried to break free, but he lifted her off the ground easily and shifted her up to over his shoulder.

Everything had seemed surreal and too real all at once, and she heard Kate shouting, but it took her another few seconds to understand she had said, “Her name is Claudette!” Longer to understand why she was doing that.

 _He…That’s right…he knows that—I’ve told him before, a lot of times now. My name. He could remember._ He didn’t though. The Wraith moved up to the hook beside Dwight without hesitation, and Claudette’s body told her to struggle—to try and fight free, but she didn’t. She just hung over the tall man’s shoulder, shaking a little, trying to think of what she could possibly do or say that might stop him.

“She’s Claudette Morel, and you know her! You have to remember _something!_ ” Dwight had shouted from beside her, and she had looked and just barely been able to see him—see Dwight, looking back at her, looking worried.

And as Dwight said her name, The Wraith stopped. They had been close to the hook—almost on top of it, and Claudette had been waiting for the tidal wave of pain that would rip through her when he put her on it. But the Wraith didn’t move. Hanging over his shoulder, she registered the cease in movement with surprise, and then felt Wraith twitch beneath her. Slowly, he turned his head to look down towards his sickle, and as he looked down at the hand his fingers loosened around the blade, letting it slide from his palm almost to his fingertips, like he might drop it.

The Wraith hadn’t done that either, though. Instead, slowly, it turned its head and looked back over at Dwight. _What’s wrong. Why did you stop?_ Claudette wondered, hoping it was something good, and not something that meant he was considering stabbing Dwight with the sickle for not shutting up. She was doing her best to watch the Wraith and get some idea, but there was no way to get a good look at his face while slung over his back. He had shifted his shoulder then, to roll her off of it, and as she slipped forward, he grabbed her with both hands, pinning her arms to her sides in a motion that took less than a second and that she had felt thousands of times as he went to life her up and drive her body onto the hook. Only, midway to impaling her, the Wraith stopped, fingers digging into her arms as he held her level with him, staring into face like he was looking for something. _Do you remember me?_ Claudette had barely dared to hope, staring back—willing it to be true. His eyes rested on hers and looked in, long and hard, searching, trying so hard to find something, and she saw the white glow over his eyes flicker once, and then again. He suddenly turned his head away, wincing and closing an eye involuntarily to pain, like someone had shined a light in his face, or he had taken a blow to the head.

“Wraith?” Claudette’s whisper was barely audible, a tinge of worry creeping into her voice.

He took a few deep breaths, and then turned his head back to face her, eyes once again fixed on hers, but narrowed this time. Like behind the mask he was confused, or angry, or both.

She was so close to him, pinned there, that she could see his chest rising and falling, and while he’d been almost still before, he was breathing quickly and a little shallow now, as his eyes flicked over to Dwight, and then back to her, tense as he tried to find whatever he was looking for. _Are you scared?_ Claudette had suddenly wondered, the thought hitting her like a slap to the face. It gave her courage. Maybe it meant they really were getting through.  “The first time you let us go it was me and him,” she said, voice still sounding empty and little in her ears despite how hard she was trying to be brave, and she moved her wrist, trying her best to point at Dwight with her arms pinned to her sides. “Try to remember, please.”

The Wraith’s eyes went white-hot again, and then flickered, and the process repeated. He looked at her, then Dwight, and slowly took a cautious step over past the steadily-forming claws of the Entity, almost in front of Dwight, still holding her, and looked at him the way he had been studying her. Dwight shot her a quick mixed hopeful-panicked _this is good, right?_ look, and then the Wraith shifted to get a better look at Dwight and she couldn’t see him anymore, held in place by the Wraith with her back to her friend. She could see the Wraith though, with this look on his face like some kind of disoriented confusion, like he was looking over a math proof trying to figure out where he’d fucked up. Then, behind the Wraith and off to the side about a foot, Claudette saw the Entity’s claws solidify around them and arc back to try and impale Dwight, who she knew must be bracing for the coming struggle. Almost the moment Claudette was aware of this, the Wraith took a second step, right in front of Dwight, and Claudette was suddenly looking dead at the coming claw over the Wraith’s shoulder and she realized with an intense horror that the Wraith didn’t see it and she couldn’t move and it was about to kill them both, so she screamed.

As she let out a blood-chilling scream, the Wraith jumped, following her gaze and turning lightning-fast to see what she was looking at, but it was still too late, and she saw the Wraith’s eyes widen as he tried to move and heard Dwight shout “Oh fuck!” and then the claw snapped shut.

The talon hit them at an angle, dragging against Claudette’s side, and the Wrath let go of her and she saw herself fall back in slow-motion as the claw ran the Wraith through, dug past him with unrelenting speed at Dwight’s chest as he screamed, and then, against all odds, Dwight caught it.

She impacted against the ground, staring up as in front of them, the Wraith hung there, suspended an inch and a half off the floor by the talon through his chest, arms up and at his sides, staring down in shock at the claw and the gaping hole in him, not reacting, like he was on a time delay.

“H…Holy shit,” Dwight sputtered, fighting to keep the talon at bay, staring at the blood seeping out of the Wraiths back. “C-Claudette! Help!”

The Wraith blinked and she saw his body shudder, then the light disappeared from his eyes and they shut as his head lulled to the side and his arms fell limp beside him, blade clattering to the floor, and he went still.

Moving as fast as she could, Claudette dragged herself to her feet, ran to Dwight, and tore him free of the hook. As he stumbled to his knees, clutching his chest, the talons dissolved around them and the Wraith’s body fell to the floor with a thud, head cracking against the ground, unmoving.

Both of the survivors stared at the Wraith’s still form in horror, then each other.

“Did,” Dwight swallowed, “Did we just kill him?”

“Oh…Oh my god,” Claudette whispered, kneeling beside the body on the concrete. “Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.”

He had fallen on his side, and she gently eased him over so she could see the hole in his chest.

“Oooh god, oh god,” she muttered, running her hands along the wound.

“Is he dead?” asked Dwight, moving up beside her.

She looked down at the Wraith’s weathered hands and reached for one to check for a pulse. _Yes! Oh, thank God! Weak, but it’s there. Oh thank you, Jesus._ “He’s alive,” she said, relief flooding her face as she turned to Dwight.

“Okay, okay good,” Dwight replied, letting out a tense breath. “We gotta end the trial then—fast. Before he bleeds out.

“Do they heal after trials like we do?” asked Claudette, suddenly feeling a deep, shadowy worry in the pit of her stomach. “I’ve never seen one get hurt worse than a stun.”

“I…don’t know,” replied Dwight, looking harried. “Okay, okay, then what can we do?” He was almost talking to himself, mind working a mile a minute. “Can you patch him up?” he asked her.

Claudette looked down at the massive hole in the man’s chest cavity, and the pooling blood. “In reality? No way in hell. Here? M-maybe, with a proper medkit, but I’ve been bringing,” she pulled a little flower chain out of her pocked to show him and slid it back in, feeling miserable and stupid, “I don’t have one.”

“Okay. Okay, then you stay here and do what you can. I’ll check every box I can find and see if there isn’t something we can use. Alright?” said Dwight, putting a hand on her shoulder. She nodded.

Dwight ran to the chest in the basement and threw it open, angrily discarding a flashlight a few seconds later before booking it upstairs, clutching his own chest to staunch the bloodflow and his left arm still hanging awkwardly.

As Dwight searched, Claudette looked down at the unconscious man beneath her. She had seen the Wraith up close long and still enough to really get a look at two times now: a minute ago when he was holding her, and from across the trial burrier the time he’d let her go, but it was never like this. She had been thrown over shoulders or torn out of lockers countless times, she had never been close enough to any killer to study them—to really look at them. She always had to be running, or hiding, or struggling, even if she was near them. But now, the Wraith was perfectly still and harmless at her feet, barely even breathing.

She wanted to stare, to see what he really looked like and if he was a human, but even half in shock she was together enough to know this wasn’t the time. Blood was seeping out of his chest where the long, deep, jagged hole remained. _Do what I can?_ Claudette asked herself. _What can I do?_

The claw had gone in right at the base of his ribs, exiting higher between his shoulder blades as it carved up, and when the Entity’s claw had disappeared it had left nothing keeping pressure on the wound. _That’s the first rule of a puncture wound, right?_ Claudette thought, fighting down the urge to panic, _Don’t remove the object? Well, too late for that. I can’t put a new one in, right? What are you thinking! That’s—of course you can’t! That’s crazy; jamming something in the hole is stupid. Breathe and think rationally!_

Over the many, many trials she’d been through, Claudette had dressed more than her fair share of open chest puncture wounds—it was like, the most standard injury per trial. But with the Wraith, it was different. They started to recover a little as soon as they were saved from a hook—but him? He wasn’t recovering at all, and the hole was twice the size it usually was in one of them. The hit he’d taken was the one that always killed them when it connected. Trying her best to think fast, Claudette pulled off her shoes and used the Wraith’s fallen sickle to pry off the plastic soles from their bases, quickly taking the cleaner side she’d just torn free and moving the Wraith onto his side so she could place one chunk of oddly shaped plastic over each hole. _I took that one pre-med elective for fun, and I don’t remember anywhere near enough! Why couldn’t I have disappeared later in the semester!_ she thought angrily, _Chest wounds are supposed to be treated for potential lung collapse by sealing them, right?_ Her mind played her images of a bad PowerPoint slide clicking past while the speaker had told a story about someone using a driver’s license to seal a wound and save a life. _AHHH, I don’t know! I’m not a medical professional! I’m not even a med student!_ She kept going, though, because it seemed better than nothing, and she had to do something—she couldn’t just sit there and watch him die. _Pressure needs to be steadily applied and I need to bind it,_ she told herself, focusing in on what she did know about injuries as she tugged off her pink top and started to try and tear it into lengths—resorting again to using the Wraith’s sickle after trying to do it by hand for a second, and easily using the blade to slice through the material. Using the shirt and the shoe laces from the eviscerated shoes, she secured the best wrapping she could around the Wraith and tied it in place, then stayed by him, using her palms to keep consistent pressure on the chest wound as she watched her pink fabric turn red.

There was nothing to do then but wait for Dwight to come back. Under her fingers, the Wraith’s chest rose and fell shallowly, his eyes still shut tight and his skin slick with sweat and blood.

“Please don’t die,” said Claudette, looking down at him. “We’re so close.”

She had never known exactly what the Wraith was, but she could see him more clearly now—now that she finally had time. His arms and legs and chest were all human skin, dark brown, and covered in scars and old wounds. _Who did this to you?_ Claudette wondered, her eyes tracing a large scar that spiraled outwards from near where he had been wounded and covered most of his chest. _Was it the thing in the sky?_ She glanced up as if afraid it would appear, coming to finish what it had started, and then down at her own arms then. They were rough, speckled with little cuts and scars, worn out from all of this. It was true that they healed after trials, no matter what happened to them, but for some reason sometimes little things stayed. She had never been able to understand why. _Were you ever like us?_ Claudette thought, gazing down at what she could see of his face.

The Wraith’s head was human-shaped, but it didn’t look human. There were tiny little almost…branches at the top of it, for lack of a better word—like he was some kind of tree, and his skin was thick and rough like bark, entirely different from the skin on his arms—not even the same shade. Greyer. But as she looked closer, Claudette noticed little patches of dark brown amidst the rough, bark-like thing covering his head, and realized after squinting at it for a second that it was skin—normal skin underneath whatever was covering his face, which meant that it had to be some kind of mask, right? And she was gripped by a sudden, deep-seated urge to see if she could peel the mask off and get a look at his face underneath, but wisely beat that impulse down even faster than it had come up and refocused on applying her steady pressure to his chest wound.

 _I wonder if he…if any of them take the masks off when they aren’t in trials? You look like a monster when you’re chasing us, but…_ “You are a human, huh?” Claudette asked out loud, feeling somehow like talking to him, even unconscious, might help him stay alive.

There was no response, just the unsteady, shallow breathing beneath her hands. He looked hurt, and weak, and so much less scary. It was…well in a way it was reassuring. She was worried of course—worried he would lose too much blood, or go into shock, or die, but even amidst that fear there was something strangely comforting about realizing he had human skin, and seeing an expression on his face like you might catch on someone sleeping fitfully from a nightmare. It was even reassuring just being able to feel him breathe. It was familiar.

Racing footsteps pounded on the stairs above her, and Dwight skidded on the wood stairs as he headed down, almost losing his balance as he rounded the landing.

“Did you find one?” Claudette asked hopefully.

Dwight held up a slender black key.

 

 

“Which way?” asked Claudette, doing her best to hold up her half of the Wraith.

They had him draped over their shoulders, one arm around him apiece, but he was so big his legs dragged on the ground as they moved, doing their best to be gentle of the torso wound. The Wraith’s head hung forward over his chest, eyes shut, and Claudette kept having to steal worried looks in his direction to make sure he hadn’t stopped breathing.

“This way,” said Dwight, indicating right with his head. “I’m sorry I took so long. Why is it only if I actually have a key on me I can never find the damned hatch?”

“I think they’re cursed,” Claudette replied, grimacing as she rounded the corner and the pressure from holding up the Wraith upset the gash in her side.

“I finally found it by a vending machine,” Dwight continued, taking his own worried glance at the Wraith, “But it’s ungodly far from the basement. Do…do you think he’s gonna make it?”

Claudette looked at the Wraith and bit her lip. “If he gets better outside trials like we do, yes. If not…I…Let’s just hurry.”

Dwight nodded and they kept going, as fast as they could without hurting their burden. It took them a minute to make it to the room Dwight had described, but there it was sure enough. The hatch, right before a glowing black vending machine. Still closed.

“You didn’t open it?” Claudette asked, surprised.

“I…” Dwight looked like he was trying to figure out how to put something, “We know that Killers can’t go past the exit.”

 _Oh._ Of course—that made sense. “Do you think he can’t go in the hatch?” whispered Claudette out of habit, since there was no longer any _real_ need to whisper here.

“I thought that maybe if we put the key in his hand and had him unlock it…?” Dwight offered. “Look, I know it’s probably stupid, but.”

“No, no—it’s a good idea. It might help, won’t hurt,” Claudette reassured him as together they eased the Wraith to the ground by the hatch. He didn’t look good. The breaths were coming in still shallow, but slower now.

Gingerly, Dwight took the Wraith’s right hand and placed the key in his palm, then moved the hand to insert the key in the lock. There was a satisfying _click_ and the hatch swung open, and the sound that Claudette had always thought somehow sounded like both wind and light came gently pouring out, and she and Dwight looked at each other.

“I’ll uh, I’ll go first, and you pass him down to me,” said Dwight, taking a deep breath. He let go of the Wraith gently and tossed the sickle down into the hatch first, then eased himself into the hatch, doing his best to lower himself while bearing most of his weight with only his uninjured arm as he descended the iron rungs on the side of the pit. “Alright,” Dwight called up, “I’m ready.”

“Please work,” whispered Claudette, moving to lift the Wraith’s feet into the hole. She was so sure, in the pit of her stomach, that bars like outside the trial gates would appear, or the black smoke billowing out of the hatch would solidify and block his entry, but his legs slipped in as easily as Dwight’s had, and she let out a breath that turned into a little laugh, overwhelmed with relief and happiness. She leaned over the hole and saw Dwight looking up at her, looking so similarly relieved he might pass out. She nodded at him and then moved and hooked her arms around the Wraith’s shoulders and awkwardly did her best to gently leverage him into the hole.

He was heavy, and Claudette wasn’t that strong, and she was so terrified of dropping him that she could feel her heart thudding in her chest, but she managed to hold onto him as she leaned forward on her stomach and lowered the body, and in a few seconds Dwight had a good hold on him and told her to let go. There was a muffled cry of pain as the entire weight of the large man shifted to Dwight and his dislocated shoulder, but he got the Wraith to the ground safely, and Claudette hopped in after them. Above her, she heard the hatch clank shut, and suddenly it was pitch black.

There was a second of silence and the sound of people fumbling through pockets, and Dwight hit the nightlight function on his wristwatch at almost the same instant Claudette lit up the flashlight Dwight had dropped in the basement. They smiled at each other, so relieved they had made it this far that they both let out relieved laughs.

“Is it working?” asked Dwight, crouching next to the Wraith and picking up the sickle from where it had landed, “Is he healing?”

Claudette stooped beside him, her side wound closing up as she did. In front of her, she watched Dwight’s shoulder re-set itself. The Wraith, however, didn’t look much better.

“I don’t know—I don’t think so,” replied Claudette, reaching down to check his pulse. “He’s breathing, and his heartbeat isn’t irregular, so that’s good.”

“Okay,” said Dwight, nodding, “Then let’s get going. Sooner we make it out of here, the sooner we’re back at the campfire where we can do something about it.”

“Yes, please,” Claudette agreed readily. She wanted to fix the Wraith as soon as possible, and on top of that, while hatch escapes were nice, you had to wander your way through tunnels in the dark, sometimes for a few minutes before reaching the campfire, and she didn’t like it. The tunnels were thin and always sounded eerie—like they weren’t supposed to be here.

The two of them shifted the Wraith onto more carriable positions over their shoulders and started off again, following the winding earthen path in silence by the light of Claudette’s flashlight, until they finally reached a dead end and another set of iron rungs leading up.

Claudette and Dwight traded a quick look in the dim light, and Dwight passed the Wraith off to Claudette and hurried up the rungs with the sickle, throwing open the hatch up top and crawling out. She expected to see him appear again in a second, laying on his stomach, arms ready to help her lift the Wraith up, but he didn’t. She waited a few more seconds and then nervously called up after him. “Dwight? Everything okay?”

“Y-yeah, I uh, it’s…” He sounded close, like he was right on top of the hatch, and then she saw his head appear in the little square of moonlight above. “I’m sorry, here, pass him up.”

A little disconcerted, Claudette climbed the first few rungs, getting as high as she could manage one-handed so she could keep a grip on the Wraith with her free hand and without lifting the Wraith completely off the ground so she could bear the weight, and then she placed her right foot as high up on the rungs as she could reach and with as much strength as she could muster, she lifted her body weight and the Wraith’s with one leg and propelled them both up towards Dwight just long enough for him to shoot out his arms and get them under the Wraith’s. They managed it on the first go, and Dwight got a firm grip on the larger man and started to try and lift him up through the hole while Claudette did her best to get a grip on the Wraith’s legs and lift some of his weight from below. It was a clumsy, awkward job, especially with them trying to be gentle of the hole through his chest, but after a few seconds of concentrated effort and silent curses at almost-lost grips and banging elbows against iron rungs, Dwight got the Wraith out onto the ground above the hatch and Claudette clambered out after him.

As her head got aboveground and she could take in fresh air again, Claudette’s eyes went wide and her breath caught in her throat. There was no campfire, no familiar clearing in the woods, but she did recognize the place. She had been there so many times, fixing generators while trying to hide from things that wanted to kill her. Autohaven—right in the center of the dilapidated garage.

“Oh no,” she breathed out, almost a whisper.

“Yeah,” said Dwight, looking a little ashamed. “Thought I’d wait till we got him out of the tunnel to tell you.”

“What…we can’t be in another trial, right? There…aren’t any generators,” Claudette said after a second, pulse quickening as she scanned the horizon to make sure she was correct.

“Yeah, I think not,” Dwight replied, shifting the Wraith into a more comfortable position on the wood floor.

“Is this where killers go?” Claudette asked, mind working quickly to propose options. “Is—did we go where he goes?”

“I think so,” said Dwight, looking grim. “It makes sense, if you think about. We can run into people a ton of times in trials, but it’s only if we try to leave together that we end up back at the same—at our own campfire.”

“Oh god, and we had him unlock the,” Claudette started.

“—Yeah, the black lock,” Dwight finished.

They were quiet for a second, looking at each other and the unconscious man with them, and the familiar yet forebodingly new terrain.

“What do we do?” asked Claudette finally.

“I guess we should…try to find a way back,” Dwight answered slowly. “We don’t know if his…home is connected to our own, but we might as well try. There’s at least not a burrier, like in the trials. It might go on past what we can see.”

Claudette nodded slowly, thinking that over, and shivered a little involuntarily. It was always sort of cold in the woods, and she wasn’t used to running around in a tank top.

“Here,” said Dwight, noticing and starting to unbutton his dress shirt, “If we’re going to be walking around in the woods for who knows how long looking for home, you’re gonna get cold like that.”

Claudette smiled at him and shook her head, holding up a hand for him to stop. “And if you take your shirt off and give it to me, you’ll get cold. You actually have less layers—I’ve at least got the tank top.”

“I-I know that,” Dwight replied, looking a little hassled, “I’m trying to be nice.”

“Well, it’s sweet,” Claudette said, still smiling, “But I’ll be okay.” She glanced down at the Wraith and her smile faded. More of the dressing she’d made out of her own top had red blotches soaking through. “I actually will take your shirt though,” she said, turning back to Dwight, “I’m going to have to destroy it to keep him going long enough for us to make it somewhere I can actually try to fix him. Sorry,” she added apologetically.

Dwight sighed and nodded, unbuttoning the shirt and passing it and his tie to her, shivering a little himself with nothing to shield his torso from the cold. “It’s fine. The thing was getting worn out anyway. Not like I really loved having to wear a dress shirt all the time anyway.”

“Really?” asked Claudette, “Oh, can you pass me his weapon?” She held out her hand for the blade and Dwight picked it up and handed it over. “What would you wear if you could have chosen your outfit when you disappeared?” she asked, starting to slice the dress shirt into slivers of cloth.

“A Christmas sweater,” replied Dwight, “Hey, is there anything I can do to help?”

“Sure, take these and tie them together to make one strand,” said Claudette, passing him a few pieces of what used to be his shirt.

“How about you?” asked Dwight, moving to sit a little closer so they could pass things easily.

“I don’t know for sure,” replied Claudette thoughtfully, using her teeth to tie off a knot. “Maybe a costume.”

He looked at her in surprise, pausing in his work.

“What?” she continued, feeling embarrassed, “I know it’s dumb, but if I was wearing a Halloween costume and going around dressed as Batman, or Storm, or Princess Leia, I’d be a lot less scared.”

“No I…I think in a way that makes sense,” replied Dwight, handing her a completed cord of fabric. “I guess I’d want the Christmas sweater for the same reason. Sweaters always made me feel more at home. Safer, you know? Because I only really wore them at home, because I didn’t care what I looked like at home, and no one can tell under a sweater anyway. Plus, they’re warm.”

“You make a good case for sweaters,” Claudette smiled, moving to undo some of the bandages on the Wraith and fix them. “Why don’t you see if you can get some idea of what direction to go? This’ll take a minute.”

Dwight nodded and stood up, looked around for a second, and then headed off towards a patch of woods.

For he’d gone a few steps, Claudette watching his retreating figure, she called after him in something just a little too loud to be called a whisper. “Hey Dwight!”

He stopped and looked back, waiting, looking pale and cold and like a huge nerd.

“I’m really glad I got stuck here with _you_ —otherwise I’d be freaking out a lot more. You’re like a human sweater,” she continued, and then after hearing her words she flushed and added, “I-I meant that in a nice way. Not an insulting one. Be-because of what you just said.”

“I put you at ease?” he asked, wrapping his arms around himself against the cold, looking ridiculous.

“You make me feel safer,” she corrected. It was true, and saying it made her feel warmer and calmer inside. This was really a terrible situation to be in, not just in general but specifically at present, and having Dwight there was keeping her level and making her feel like things were going to be okay. He really did have a knack for leading.

About ten feet away, Dwight blinked in surprise and awkwardly stood there in silence, shirtless and huddled against the wind for a second before saying, “I…don’t really know how to respond to that, because it’s kind of an unexpected, weird compliment, but thank you. I’m glad I’m good for something. You too. I mean—”

“—It’s good,” she cut in, smiling to herself, and then she waved him on, “Go do your thing—find out where we’re going.”

“Right!” He replied, rubbing his arms for warmth, “On it!” Then he turned and headed off, arms still wrapped around himself, and Claudette went back to working on the Wraith.

It didn’t take her long to re-bind the wounds. To her immense relief, it did look a little better than she had been afraid it would—mostly because it hadn’t worsened, which it really should have after being dragged half a mile and passed up and down ladders by two people smaller then himself, which probably meant the killers did heal at an accelerated rete, even if not as quickly as the survivors did outside of trials.  Still, he didn’t look great. The hole wasn’t closing up, and even if he was losing blood a lot more slowly than someone should have for a wound like that, he was still losing blood. He’d soaked through most of her formerly pink shirt, and it was already starting to leak onto the white of Dwight’s by the time she was halfway through re-binding it. Despite the anxiety trying to bubble up in her chest, Claudette focused down and did her best to get him stable. She ended up finishing getting things back in place about the same time Dwight appeared at the edge of her vision, quickly heading towards her.

“You found something?” she asked hopefully, no real idea what he could have found.

“I think so,” replied Dwight, stooping down to help her lift the Wraith up again. “There are several different areas not too far from here, and I can hear fairly disturbing sounds coming from a few of them. Most of them look kind of like trial areas too. Only one that doesn’t, so I’m thinking we try our luck that way? Or we pick the least horrifying devil we know. Is he…any better?” Dwight added as an afterthought, giving the Wraith’s still face and closed eyes a worried look.

“Not really,” Claudette replied honestly, “But he’s not worse either—so that’s good.”

“That—that is good,” Dwight agreed, looking a little relieved.

“Devil we know?” Claudette asked. “So…it’s like a Killer cul-de-sac that we’re in the middle of?”

“Yeah,” said Dwight, looking disgruntled at that description and like he wished he hadn’t had to break this particular news, “It looks like it. Not exactly a neighborhood—the places are weirdly separated, and it’s kind of hard to see into some of them, but I climbed a tree and got a pretty decent look, even through the fog and whatever weird shit separates them.”

Claudette took that in for a second and then swallowed. “Okay, what are our choices?”

“Well, I could see houses in one direction,” Dwight replied, looking as wary of that as she immediately felt.

“So definitely not that one because it’s either Haddonfield or the Preschool,” Claudette finished for him.

“Yeah, hell not that way,” Dwight agreed. “Rotting boats in another, so probably the swamp. And then it’s sort of hard to tell what’s behind us—I thought it was just woods, so maybe Huntress, but I think I heard the damn horse.”

“Eugh, the Clown?” asked Claudette, grimacing, “Okay. And the one you don’t recognize?”

“It kind of looks like a…farm?” Dwight explained, thinking hard for a good way to describe it. “But, uh, not Coldwind. No corn, or anything. More like…grassland…like the Midwest or something? Maybe that’s a ranch, not a farm? I don’t know.”

“Okay. And no bad sounds?” Claudette asked.

“There was a chainsaw coming from somewhere but it was hard to tell and seemed far off—really faint. Nothing but creepy wind and birds and this vaguely hissing sound from the swamp, and I could hear the nurse, but she sounded further off than the chainsaw. Really distant. The only thing I heard that was close and definitely alive in any direction was the horse,” Dwight answered.

“So…Swamp, Clown, Midwest,” Claudette whispered. “We can’t go fast with him, and we’re only going to be able to be so careful and quiet carrying a body. At least nobody out here should expect us to be around, but…”

“Yeah,” said Dwight after a second, looking grim, “How the fuck are we ever supposed to get out of here.”

Claudette let out a slow breath. “What do you think? Which one would go with the swamp?” They had a decent idea who went with some places, and after confirmation from Laurie and Quentin that Haddonfield and the Preschool were very specific locations tagged to Killers, they had put two and two together and assumed every area had someone to go with it. Some of those had been easy to piece together, like the Doctor and the Treatment Ward, or the new Spirit girl with a Katana and the suddenly-appearing, never before seen ruined Japanese estate, but a lot of them were guesswork. Most of them were pretty sure the Huntress went with the cabin in the forest—for one because she appeared there far more often than anywhere else, but also because she always seemed sort of protective of things inside it, and was never that way in other locations. As far as the others went, both chainsaw wielders showed up on the farm regularly, and almost as often on the estate with the water tower, and the wrecker yard. She most commonly ran into the Wraith in the swamp and the autoyard, so her guess had always been that he went with one of those two, and now she knew for sure which, since his hatch brought him to the garage. But that didn’t tell them for sure what lived in the swamp.

“Part of me says devil we know—with our luck, we go for the one that looks safest and get fucked. But we don’t know for sure which killer goes with the swamp, unless you know something I don’t?” Dwight paused to see if she did, and she shook her head, so he continued. “I know that’s me being superstitious, and it’s dumb, and we should go for the only one we don’t _know_ means something around usually wants to kill us and try the ranch-ish place.” Dwight finished. “But I don’t like it. You?”

Claudette bit her lip and let out a dissatisfied grunt. “Okay, okay yeah, I agree. This is dumb, but I say we go to the swamp, try to get through the reeds, and if we see something we bail quietly, we back up, and we go through the Midwest patch instead.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Dwight, looking a little relieved. “It’s this way, then.”

Together, the two survivors adjusted the Wraith’s weight and made sure his field-bandages were as stable as could be, then they carried their unconscious burden through the white birches of Autohaven and into the woods, going as slowly and carefully as they could manage.

It wasn’t easy going. The wood was expansive, deep and dark in a way that the one around their own campfire was not, and the longer they tried to push through it towards the place Dwight had seen, the harder it got. Weeds tugged at their ankles, low-hanging branches cut at their exposed skin as they tried to forge their way through like an awkward three-legged race partner set trying to lug around a sack of rice, and the wind made it sound like there were things whispering and breathing in all directions, just out of sight. The flashlight was lasting, which was a relief since they hadn’t known if this area would zap the batteries like trial areas did, but the darkness was choking the light and if felt unnervingly dimmed, like trying to go through the forest by candle light. On top of that, no matter how far they went it felt like they weren’t getting closer. It was as if the ground were a treadmill and the terrain was moving around them, a perfect, ever-changing illusion to make them feel like they were going somewhere. After half an hour of this, they weren’t nervous anymore, they were worried.

“You’re sure we’re going the right way?” Claudette whispered. The area still looked like Autohaven to her. Birches, weeds, grass.

“I don’t know,” Dwight answered. They were both freezing, but he looked worse than her, shivering in his bloody dress pants. “I-I can try climbing a tree again.”

“You take a break,” replied Claudette, “You’ve been carrying most of the weight anyway. I’ll go this time.”

Gingerly, Dwight and she set the Wraith down, and Claudette gave him basic instructions for checking the unconscious man’s pulse and seeing that the bandages hadn’t shifted too much, then found a nearby birch which looked tall and had branches low enough for her to grab with a leap. She used to climb trees all the time back home, and birches were pretty easy trees, so she had it scaled in no time, going higher and higher until she’d passed most of the trees around her and the branches supporting her weight were getting dangerously thin. Once she was as high as she thought she could manage, Claudette inched along a limb until she’d gotten her head past the layer of leaves and could finally get a good look out at the world around her.

The forest was pitch black, and shadowy—only giving the vaguest suggestion of things beyond her line of sight. It was like being in a video game where the graphics didn’t render and things didn’t completely load in until you got close, and when you were far enough away you could tell, because they wouldn’t be there at all. Like Dwight had said, there were houses in the distance, way off to her right—suggestions of them anyway, pale white-ish structures that looked blurry, and a little flat, like a painted backdrop. She was suddenly nervous, and turned to look. To her dismay, behind her the hollow shell of the autohaven garage was much closer than a half-hour’s walk, and she felt her heart sink.

 _How are we ever supposed to get back?_ she asked herself again, feeling hope drain away as she scanned her surroundings.

“Okay, okay,” she whispered for the reassurance of her own voice. “Think it through. You can do this.”

They had heard the Killers before, sometimes even without going too far into the woods by the campfire. Distant, always, but they’d heard them all the same. _Connected,_ Claudette thought, remembering what Vigo had said in the journal she found, _We can hear them because we’re connected. Like doors off the same hallway. Or…he said like a circle, with everything having a door to the center…Connected, maybe more like planets orbiting the sun. Gravitational pulls, predictable cycles. We can see each other, but we’re far away._ Then she glanced at the nearby boats and houses and open farmland and thought, _Well, maybe not that far. But…something keeps us from running into each other. There has to be a way to do it, though? Right? Like a circle. Like a sunflower. No…that’s stupid. Like an atom. Tiny little worlds bunched up together. So how do we open a door. Can we? Should we just try and break through the walls instead? The Entity can open doors—it does, or, it does something like that when it moves us from where we are to a trial._

Frustrated, Claudette rapped her fingers against the limb she was holding onto. Looking at the areas near them, so close and so impossibly out of reach, a wave of sadness washed over her.

 _Damn it! I’m too stupid to figure this out! I can’t do this kind of thing—that Vigo guy was some sort of weird Alchemist-Chemist-Biologist genius, and he couldn’t do it! Compared to that, I’m nothing. I’m not going to get anywhere._ Claudette held up a hand and cut off her own mental tirade, and took a long breath. _Okay…Okay. This is hard, but you have to figure some of it out, or the Wraith is going to die._ That thought hit deep and she felt the blood drain out of her face. _Yeah, no pressure. Okay. Okay. I’m being stupid and wasting time; I should ask Dwight. Two heads are better than one._

Feeling nervous and disappointed in herself and more than a little scared, but also just a bit reassured by having a next step (albeit a temporary one), Claudette scrambled down the tree as fast as she could.

“You find anything?” asked Dwight hopefully, looking up at her as her feet hit the ground. He was propped up against the tree opposite, with the Wraith’s upper body propped up in his lap. “He’s still breathing, but he’s starting to bleed through my shirt too,” Dwight added, gesturing at the unconscious form.

“Yeah. It looks like we haven’t gone far at all,” said Claudette, moving to sit beside him. As quickly as she could, she explained what she’d seen and what little she knew, or guessed, from the notes she’d found. All the while, Dwight listened thoughtfully, face scrunched up in concentration.

“Okay,” said Dwight after thinking for a few seconds when she’d finished. “So, if the areas are closed off, it has to be for a reason, right? Like, so the killers don’t kill each other, or so we don’t wander in like we’re trying to now and get slaughtered.”

“Or just because it likes to keep people separate,” Claudette suggested thoughtfully. “Although, we do have the campfire.”

“Not at first though. We have to want it, and leave together,” Dwight added.

“We both have to want it,” said Claudette.

“Right!” continued Dwight, looking a little excited by the idea they were making progress. “So, we want to find the swamp, right? But maybe we can’t because whatever’s there doesn’t want us to. Or maybe it’s because he’s out cold, and doesn’t want anything.”

“Do you think it’s that simple?” asked Claudette, “Like, the reason the Killers can’t come to our fire is because we don’t want them to? And now we can’t get into their places for the same reason? Why—wouldn’t they want us there, to kill us more?”

“I don’t know,” said Dwight slowly, considering, “Maybe because the Wraith wouldn’t want it.”

“If that’s the reason, we won’t get anywhere unless we can wake him up and explain what’s going on,” said Claudette hopelessly.

They sat together in dejected silence for a few seconds, thinking. Absently, Claudette took the Wraith’s hand to check his pulse, and hesitated when something carved into his hand caught her eye.

“What?” asked Dwight, noticing the look on her face.

Claudette held the hand up for him to see. “He’s never had that before—I know, I’ve been yanked out of enough lockers—”

“—Yeah, me too,” agreed Dwight, rubbing his neck at the unpleasant memory. On the Wraith’s right palm, there was a symbol that looked like “Mɔ,” sort of like a badly drawn M and a closed parentheses mark.

“Hey, I just had a thought,” Claudette said suddenly. “Not about the…weird mark—sorry, I’m jumping subjects, but it’s about getting out. It’s probably gonna sound dumb though.”

“Please,” said Dwight, giving the _go on_ gesture, “At this point, anything at all is more than welcome.”

“…What if we just get permission?” said Claudette in a voice that betrayed she knew it didn’t sound like a great idea.

“Get…” Dwight hesitated, running that through his head, “You mean from the Entity?”

“Yeah,” replied Claudette, flushing, “I know it sounds dumb, but it might work.”

“It’ll know we’ve got him if we actually succeed in…talking to it,” Dwight said haltingly, “I mean, I guess it has to either already know, or be oblivious as shit, since it’s the one who accidentally stabbed him. But…then why hasn’t it done anything? It can’t actually want him to die, right? Because it never kills killers. It uses them—I kind of thought it needed them.”

“Yeah, it is weird,” agreed Claudette, really thinking that angle through for the first time. “It should be trying to do something about this. Does—do you think it somehow didn’t notice?”

“I’ve got no fucking clue,” answered Dwight, sounding exhausted.

“Well, I don’t actually mean ask permission when I say get,” Claudette said, picking up her old thread. “You’re probably right and it does know, but if it doesn’t, I don’t feel like drawing attention to ourselves is a great idea. It clearly doesn’t like us, because it kills us all the time. And if we die out here, I don’t know what happens to us.”

“Yeah,” said Dwight, grimacing at the thought.

“So, we don’t know how to get past its stupid rules and barriers and stuff, but what if we don’t have to? Not ask permission exactly outright, but what if we can cheat?” suggested Claudette.

“Cheat how?” asked Dwight, watching with an expression that was a mixture of intent and hopeful, “Because I’m very behind that if you’ve got a plan.”

“Well, I was just thinking,” said Claudette slowly, still working the pieces out in her head as she went. “It makes sense if the Killers can’t walk into each other’s areas because they’d fight, right? I know some of them would. And it makes sense that they wouldn’t be able to go into our campfire, either, because then we’d have nowhere to go to be temporarily safe. But I think we can go more places than the camp, at least sometimes, because of the journals I’ve read. Like—Benedict Baker, it sounds like he’s wandered all over the place, way more than just by the campfire. There are places I’m sure we’re not supposed to go, too, because there’s rules and an order to everything. But, well, by all accounts we should never have been able to get out here, but we did, with the hatch. So…what if we’re already outside our own electric fence?”

“You mean…” said Dwight, picking up her string and following it, “If it’s like true/false rules on a computer, or magic wards, or whatever, why even have a rule we can’t walk in the back door of one killer’s place to another? Because there’s no need to ward against something that can’t happen.”

“Exactly,” said Claudette, feeling excited at the idea of all her time spent hypothesizing about the realm actually coming in useful and reassured that Dwight had made the same connections, “And we could just be entirely wrong about all this, but it should be easy to test.”

“But we’d have to leave the Wraith,” said Dwight, looking down at the shallowly-breathing man he was propping up. “Which was the original problem we were trying to avoid.”

“Okay, so hear me out,” Claudette answered, holding up a hand and feeling both nerves and a little anticipation at the idea that had just solidified in her head, “So what if the problem isn’t that he can’t exist in anyone else’s realm, but that he can’t _go_ in? And we can use that technicality.”

“Like, when you’re a little shit and your mom says, ‘Be home by ten,’ and you come home at 2:00 am, which, technically, is still before 10:00 am, which she failed to specify?” added Dwight.

“Exactly,” replied Claudette, building up assurance as she went, “—ish, uh, anyway. I’m thinking what if he doesn’t _go_ in. What if we pick him up and _take_ him in. I mean, we’ve been trying to drag him in, he hasn’t been walking, but it’s still been all three of us crossing the border.”

“Do you…do you think it’s that easy?” asked Dwight, blinking and staring at nothing as he ran the scenario through his head. “That it’ll matter if he’s being lugged in instead of helped in? I mean, shit, I guess it could,” he added, shaking himself out of his reverie. He looked at Claudette, voice steadily picking up hope and confidence as he continued. “I’d almost believe anything right now. We followed him through his hatch, and he just almost got sacrificed on accident. I got grabbed off a hook by a killer. Plus, it sounds like the Nightmare, Shape, and the Wraith have all somehow gotten away with doing stuff they weren’t supposed to be able to. Let’s give it a shot.”

Dwight looked at her, excited with the possibility, and Claudette beamed. She had no idea if it would actually work, but his enthusiasm was reassuring, and she scrambled to her feet and helped him lift the Wraith, taking the tall man’s legs as Dwight lifted his shoulders, until the two of them had him suspended a few feet off the ground.

He was heavy, and they were two of the weakest members of their group, but desperation and adrenaline go a long way, so huffing and struggling and shivering through the underbrush, the two of them awkwardly forged forward as fast as they could, trying hard to watch their footing and their cargo and where they were going all at the same time.

Doing their best to avoid especially difficult terrain, Dwight backed through what looked like almost a little trail through the steadily denser trees, but after about half a minute of pushing on turned into a denser and denser patch of twig-like brambles, the pieces of which kept getting stuck in Claudette’s hair and scratching up Dwight’s back. The Wraith felt ridiculously heavy in Claudette’s arms as she did her best to tug her head free of branches without the use of her hands, and both of them were so distracted trying to break through the brittle little branches that they didn’t even realize the grass had turned lighter and the night somehow darker until Dwight broke free of the brambles and stumbled out into the open.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered, a flood of different emotions flickering across his face.

As Claudette broke the tree line behind him, she saw it too. Pale, open grassland, patches of trees and bushes and brush. A single white porch swing moved gently in the light breeze about fifteen feet away, the only sign of life anywhere.

“We went the wrong way?” she whispered back, worry seeping up into her chest. She swallowed hard and tried to fight it back down. _You don’t have to be scared. Nothing bad has happened to you here, ever. This is okay. You’re okay._

“I don’t know how…” Dwight trailed off, scanning the horizon. He seemed to process something internally and sort of shook himself and turned back to Claudette. “Hey, on the plus-side, you did it,” he said with a reassuring smile, voice low, “We made it in.”

Claudette felt her face get hot and nodded. Temporarily losing her ability to speak unfortunately seemed to be her deeply engrained default response to being praised. At least it temporarily distracted from the wave of uneasiness that had passed over her when she saw the open grassland.

“It’ll be okay,” whispered Dwight, easily picking up on her nervousness and doing his best to reassure her. “We just keep quiet, stay on the edges, and go through. With any luck, it belongs to some killer that’s long gone. After all, we’ve never seen the place before in a trial, so that would make sense, right?”

She nodded wordlessly and did her best to get a better grip on the Wraith’s legs. As she did, her eyes moved up to his chest and face, trying to see in the dark how he looked. His face was drawn—a little more conscious than he’d looked before, like his unconscious mind was gradually becoming aware of the fact that he was in pain. Still breathing, at least. But there was blood starting to make it through the second layer of wrappings and leak over his chest.  _I’m going to have to lose my pants or my tank top if this keeps up,_ thought Claudette, feeling sickened and overwhelmed with simulated embarrassment as well as fear for the Wraith, _And that won’t even really help that much. No matter how many times I re-dress the wound, if it keeps bleeding through, even if I’m slowing the flow by reapplying appropriately tight dressings, he’s going to bleed out. Please,_ she thought, looking down at the weakly raising and falling chest, _Please don’t die._

That possibility was something she didn’t want to think about, so she made herself take a deep breath, and then she turned back to Dwight and whispered, “Okay, ready,” and the two of them started to slowly creep through the edge of the yard, going as quick and quiet and clandestinely as possible for two small young adults in the dark trying to haul the dead-weight of a man twice their size through an open space.

Which wasn’t exactly fantastic.

 

* * *

 

“So, how exactly are we supposed to find ‘em?” asked Kate, who could tell she was mildly annoying Jake with the fact that she wasn’t having to struggle very much to keep up with him.

“I have a few ideas,” Jake said, avoiding an actual answer.

“Okay,” said Kate, pulling herself over a boulder Jake had decided to scale and joining him on top of it. “Why are we--? Oh.” She stopped the question, taking in the larger than normal view of the forest available from the high vantage point.

Jake didn’t seem to notice. He just scanned the area and then hopped off the rock, proceeding in a slightly more easterly direction than before.

“Are you mad at me?” asked Kate, skidding down the boulder behind him and stumbling into place. “Because it really seems like it.” Jake kept going, weaving quickly through the trees, and Kate sped up to keep pace. “You’ve barely said two words since I finished explainin’ what happened, and you dodge every question I ask.”

Jake sighed. “I’m not mad. I just don’t feel like chatting.” He pushed past some bushes and took a turn.

“Would it really hurt to try and formulate a plan?” Kate asked, following, “Or at least tell me what yours _is_?” Her companion did nothing to acknowledge she had spoken, so Kate kept going. “Look, I wanna help them. And you. But I ain’t spent as much time digging through the woods as you have, so there’s not much I can do if you won’t talk to me.”

There was a set expression on Jake’s face as he pushed on, occasionally stopping for a half second to scan the area and then picking a new direction and continuing.

“Jake, please,” said Kate, feeling a lot more tired and distressed than irritated with him. “I just wanna help.”

She moved a branch out of her way and pushed on after him, trying to pick out any indicator in the woods ahead that there was some kind of path, or trail, or direction to follow. It seemed endless and jumbled to her, not like a real wood. There were no paths carved by animals moving from shelter to shelter and water to food. No growth patterns in the trees built around their universal need for sunlight, no telltale sounds of life. Not even water.

“Do you know where we’re going?” she asked, speeding up to be nearly abreast with Jake so she could see his face. “I don’t just mean where they are. I mean—all this looks the same to me. It’s unreal,” she continued, gesturing at the trees around them. “I’ve been in my fair share of woods, too.”

“If we keep going, we’ll find something,” said Jake, voice heavy with annoyance and the desire not to be disturbed.

His tone set Kate off a little, and she bristled. _Why won’t you just work with me you damn stubborn fool? I ain’t asking for much. Shit._ “Find something?” asked Kate, her voice just barely indicating she might have her hackles raised, “Like what? The Nurse? The Cannibal? And what if they are out here with the Wrath—huh? Then what? Do you wanna fight him? We don’t know what happens if we get killed by them outside of a trial, and everyone’s wandering around in the woods _Scooby-Doo_ style split up, and they might not even still _be_ with the Wraith.”

Jake stopped and turned to shoot her a look, then he pushed on again, choosing not to engage. Kate followed just as stubbornly, not finished.

“They could have gone to another Campfire, or somehow still be in the trial even. We don’t know. At least I don’t—hell if I can tell if you do, because you won’t talk to me.” Jake was walking a lot faster now, so Kate was too, and a near jog combined with the string of accusations was making her breath come in a little short. “I ain’t saying we shouldn’t be out here doing something, but just because you know what you’re doing don’t mean the rest of us do, and if you won’t tell me your plan what do you expect me to be able to help with. If you would just—”

“I don’t have one—okay!” Jake exploded, turning on her. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Will you finally stop asking me?”

Kate took an involuntary step backwards, surprised. Jake glared at her for a second and then let out an angry sound she didn’t know how to classify and turned on his heel and stalked off further into the woods.

It took a moment for the surprise to pass and her to be thinking clearly again, and then Kate hurried after him. It only took a few seconds for her to be back at his heels. “Why didn’t you just say so?” asked Kate, her voice a lot gentler.

Jake didn’t answer. He just kept forging on, eyes straight ahead.

“Jake—” Kate prompted, but he sped up again. She frowned and squared her jaw and sped up, making it past and in front of him with a sudden burst of speed. “Jake,” she said again, putting her arms out like she was trying to stop a charging horse. It worked, and he stopped opposite her, looking more tired than angry now. He waited a second for her to ask him again, but she didn’t, so he let out a breath and answered one of the questions she had asked before.

“I’m worried,” Jake said. “I don’t have a plan. But I want to be out here, so that if I think of something in time, at least I’ll be close enough to actually do something. _Yes,_ I know it’s impractical, _yes,_ I know it could put everyone in danger.” He waited a second for her to move, and when she didn’t, he sighed and looked down, then gestured at the forest behind her. “Can I pass?”

 “Why didn’t you say that earlier?” asked Kate, lowering her arms.

Jake made a noncommittal gesture with his hand. “What do you want me to say?”

“The…answer to what I asked you?” replied Kate like she was trying to figure out if that was a trick question.

“Look,” said Jake, and he went to move past her, but she shifted and put herself in front of him again. He gave her an irritated look and tried a second time, but she countered again, and he stopped.

“I wouldn’t have cared,” said Kate. “I don’t—that you haven’t really got a plan. I get it, you want to be out here even if we know nothing, because damn if even a bad shot at helping them when they might be in trouble ain’t worth it. But the fact we don’t got forever to prepare don’t mean we shouldn’t do it the best we can.”

“You didn’t want to do this in the first place,” countered Jake, moving suddenly and finally making it past her. He started to walk quickly again, and Kate fell into step beside him. She was quiet for a second.

“I’m sorry,” said Kate after a moment of walking by him in silence. “I’m just worried about people getting’ hurt because we do things the wrong way, or don’t think it through. I didn’t mean it to sound like I thought this weren’t worth it, or I didn’t want to come.”

Jake’s eyes flickered over towards her when she apologized, but he didn’t say anything.

“You shoulda talked to me though,” she added, “because if even you got no plan, we need all the strategizing we can get.”

They kept going in silence for a second, then Jake glanced in her direction and said, “If I didn’t act like I had a plan, everyone would have been more nervous. You’ve been in trials with everyone. You know the mindset going in is a bigger indicator of if we win or die than the tools we bring.”

She nodded slowly. “That’s true. But since it’s just us two now, is this really just an 100% guessing game walk through the woods?”

“No,” replied Jake. “I’ve been here a lot. Things reset every so often—terrain randomizes. Sometimes I can hear killers out here, but where the sounds come from changes. Usually more often than the woods themselves. I’ve heard the nurse, chainsaws, singing—yeah, unfortunately of both kinds,” he added, noticing the question Kate was about to ask, “Sometimes I hear a horse; even more rarely that stupid clown cart music that goes with it. Just recently, I hear that ghost girl making noise in the distance. Don’t even know _what_ I’d hear to go with the Trapper or the Shape, and I’ve never heard a Jigsaw box or the Wraith’s bell outside of a trial either. For us, I tried to pick a direction I hadn’t heard any sound from recently, because if we can get to a killer area from here, that gives us something like a one in four shot of being right.”

“Was it really east, west, north, south for all four?” asked Kate, “Like parts of the woods without sound in those directions, all symmetrical?”

“No,” answered Jake, ducking under a low branch. “It’s more like there’s a big gap up here—up north—where there’s no noise recently. Who knows, could be all four side-by-side, or I could just be wrong. The true sort of ‘area of effect’ is more north-east than true north, like 11-2 on a clock. But I figured it was just as likely I’m guessing wrong, and missed something down south or west. Plus, I haven’t canvased everything since last time the woods shifted, and for all I know it could have happened an hour ago, or be happening now. It’s not a great plan, but there’s just not a lot to work with. Meg probably has a similar understanding,” he added after a second.

“Oh,” said Kate, thinking that over. “Alright. Did you give Feng’s group east on purpose then?”

Jake vaulted over a fallen log and she saw what was almost a smile flicker across his lips. “They took Quentin, and I knew he’d bring a medkit. You never know,” was all he said, turning back to wait for her to clear the log.

She smiled at him and did, landing gracefully on the far side. “So,” she asked, brushing pieces of bark and dirt off her jeans, “You sent Laure and David, the strongest two fighters, as far away from where you think they are as possible? That wise?”

Making a noncommittal half-shrug, Jake moved on deeper into the woods, doing his best to avoid the worst of some ever-thickening underbrush. “One of the killers I can’t hear is the Shape, and he can always tell when Laurie’s nearby.”

Kate didn’t say anything, but she caught his gaze and gave him a look that suggested she didn’t entirely buy that.

Catching the glance, Jake looked away for a second and then added, almost as if it was an irrelevant afterthought, “David and Laurie have both been through a lot of shit lately.”

“And you haven’t?” asked Kate, smiling in spite of herself—not because there was anything funny about what she or he had just said, but because it was a lot more thoughtful than she had figured Jake for.

“No,” refuted Jake, finally breaking through what had been an especially dense bunch of trees and pausing to take in the more open area, “I’m good.”

“You’re not,” replied Kate with a note of finality, stopping to tear a large branch from a fallen tree. She hoisted up the makeshift club and slung it over her shoulder, turning back to Jake with a smile on her face. “But you’re alright.”

For just a second, he cracked a smile despite himself, then he cleared his throat and returned his expression to its reserved and focused default. “This way,” he said, gesturing a little to his right.

Kate nodded and followed him, and for a second they walked together in silence. It was weird, being out here in the forest like this. She had gone out a little—more than some of them—but never that far. The woods by the campfire had always looked so…similar to her. And now, even though they’d gone on for ages, part of her felt weird about it—like somehow they hadn’t. Well—they had—they had to have, because she could look back and see everything behind her that she’d just walked through, but at the same time…it was like—like the feeling you got when you worked on an essay for two hours and looked down to see your page count was a sixth of what you thought it was, or assumed you’d been driving for an hour after zoning out and listening to music in the car, only to realize it had only been twenty minutes. _Well, being spooked by nothin’ I can put a solid label on ain’t helping, so best to forget that for now,_ thought Kate.

“Any idea how we actually get into another area?” she asked Jake, glancing back at the trail they were carving one last time in spite of herself. “I mean, surely there’s some kind of wall—like in trials—y’know, between us’n them? Otherwise I know some of them woulda come and hunted us down by now.”

Jake nodded agreement. “That’s one of the bridges I was planning to cross when I got there.”

Kate dug her way through a particularly dense patch of trees and brambles, carving a path for the both of them. As she finally made it to the end, she slipped out and held up a handful of tangled branches for Jake to pass under. “I think we’re there.”

“Okay, feel free to offer advice,” said Jake, passing through the opening she’d created. He looked up in surprise and blinked. “Oh. That’s what you meant.”

 

* * *

 

 

“So you’ve been trying to befriend the Wraith?” asked Ace, looking amused and a little curious.

He and Meg were walking side by side through the woods, heads on a swivel. Not missing a beat, she turned to look back at him and said, “Yup. Basically since the trial where he killed people—although not me; Quentin and Kate and I were more recent—right after the weird trial with him and Dwight.”

Her tone was conversational and friendly, but there was a not quite disguised air of fear and sadness Ace could pick up hanging in the back of it.

“That makes sense,” he agreed casually, “’Bout what I’d expect Claudette to do. She’d be a hard case to get to give up on you.”

Meg nodded wordlessly. Preoccupied by the task, Ace thought she probably was only mostly hearing what he said. She kept searching, eyes on the edge of the seeable amount of forest ahead.

“They’ll be okay,” said Ace reassuringly, putting a hand on Meg’s shoulder. She started, and looked at him in surprise, but he kept going casually, as if he hadn’t noticed how concerned she was. “For one, they’re both smart, and they tend to play it careful. For another, nobody ever really dies in here. And besides, uh…well…damn, I….guess I didn’t really have a third thing, but it felt like, symmetrically, there would be one when I got there…Uh.”

Unconsciously, Meg flashed a real smile for a second, like she was fighting the urge to snicker.

“No, I got this,” said Ace, holding up a hand when he saw her start to say something, “—oh! Okay. Third bullet point: If you’re worried about the Wraith, don’t be. He’ll be fine too.” He paused to gesture towards the deep grey sky above them. “That thing up there obviously wants him her, or it would have gotten rid of him already. Besides which, I don’t really think it’s in its nature to let anyone go, even the death way.”

“I hope so,” commented Meg, looking a little better. “You’re right that big nasty never lets anyone just die,” she added, giving the sky the stink eye. “It’s just been shit after shit, you know?” she said, turning back to Ace.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “But don’t worry. No more of that today. I know you took a risk picking the old man as teammate for this, so if a killer comes, you have my full permission to just,” he zapped one hand across the other making a motion like a rocket taking off and a sound effect to go with it, “zoom on out of here and leave me in the dust. Trust me, I can talk my way out. I’m very charismatic that way,” he added, popping his collar.

Meg snorted at him. _That’s better._

“Okay, Gramps,” replied Meg. “But you know I picked you so I’d get the good luck, since we were all splitting up randomly, right? Gonna just,” she mate a spinning motion with her arm, “Rig me that roulette wheel so I can be the one to find mom and dad.”

“That makes so much sense,” said Ace, staring into the middle distance and committing to the bit so hard he almost tripped over a hulking tree root. Stealing a glance out of the corner of his eye, he could tell Meg looked a lot better. _Better not lose traction. Try to think of something she’ll feel good talking about._ “So, tell me about this…giant covert operation thing you all had going,” said Ace, hoping for a hit, “Was there any success? A good story?”

“Oh, that?” asked Meg, moving to avoid a thorny looking bush. “Yeah. Well, Wraith’s weird. If you push him long enough, he starts helping people—like letting Claudette go, but then something makes him forget about us and we have to start all over, which fuck’n sucks. We’ve tried a lot of ideas out, but just acting like the nature of a trial is the complete opposite of what is should be seems to be the best thing for getting him to wake up, or whatever. Like, Claudette made him flower chains, and I called him a punk ass bitch who sucks at freeze tag.”

“Opposite ends of a very large spectrum,” commented Ace, smiling.

“Yeah,” agreed Meg, “Together, we got it covered. He’s not so bad though,” she added after a second. Her expression got distant then, and she frowned. “Except last time, when he really beat the shit out of me.”

Concerned, Ace started to say something to try and redirect the conversation, but Meg kept going before he made it.

“You know what it’s like if…” She thought for a second, making a face and staring blankly into the woods as they trudged along. “The way it feels to have someone you’ve never really seen mad so mad at you it scares you? A parent, or a friend, or something? Like, there was this time with my favorite teacher in high school. We were on a trip for track once, and I had this girl I got into shit with a lot—not like we caused trouble, but like we fought, and I did this thing—it was super mean. I mean, she had it coming, probably…but it was bad. And this professor walked in on us at the hotel and saw me do it, and she was crying, and he yelled at me and it was like I hadn’t ever understood what yelling even was before that?”

Ace nodded slowly as he listened, remembering once as a child making his father so mad over something he’d said to his mother that he’d hidden outside, laying flat on the roof for almost three hours. It wasn’t like normal shouting or disappointment. The experience had been something that was hard to put into words, because it sounded mundane, but it had been very far from that.

“Like—you know how ‘angry’ is one thing, and ‘enraged’ is another,” Meg continued, “There should be a word like that for yell, because it was in another cosmos, and he was so mad that I ran out of the room because I really, honestly, genuinely thought he might kill me. And like, looking back on that, I guess that’s stupid now. If he’d even hit me, he’d have gotten in so much shit with my mom and the school, but. It was like he wasn’t even the same person. And I remember running outside, down the street, and hiding by the building, and hearing him come outside and call for me, still angry, and thinking _I’m never going to be able to think of you the same way again._ But I did.”

“It was like that?” asked Ace.

“Yeah,” replied Meg. “It was like if someone put that mode on a human being with an axe and turned it up to eleven.” She stopped walking and stared off into space for a moment. “I’ve never seen any of them like that before.” She thought for a second, then turned back to Ace and sort of shrugged. “But I guess anybody can get that way. He’s probably still okay, deep down.”

There had been a hesitation in her voice, almost like she was offering a hypothesis to herself for consideration, but after a moment she nodded with a note of acceptance.

“Ah, shit,” she exclaimed suddenly, looking down at her feet in dismay as they started to crackle and disappear. “Sorry, Ace, I’m gonna—oh,” she stopped as she glanced up at Ace and saw him point down at his own dissolving knees. They were both going to disappear.

“Quick,” said Ace, holding out a hand, “High-five for good luck before our hands disappear.”

Meg fived him expertly and they clasped hands like two bros greeting each other before a night of getting just mega sloshed on the town.

“Well, at least if they ended up back at the campfire and were just on a delay, we’ll know pretty soon,” Meg offered hopefully.

“And if they ended up at the wrong fire, we can get them back if they’re in there,” added Ace.

“And if not, guess we’ll die,” Meg grinned, and they both vanished.

 

* * *

 

 

“So.”

They said it at the same time, which just made it worse. Laurie and David had been walking in a painfully awkward silence for way longer than either of them had expected, and with each second added to the pool of time with nothing said, the silence got more and more grating.

David tried a halfhearted _oops—same time_ laugh and Laurie made an attempt to join in, but that just left both of them feeling like they’d done a harrowingly bad job. They both grimaced.

“Uh,” said David, trying again. “Sorry.”

“No—no, you’re fine,” Laurie replied, waving it off. “Sorry. I’m still…trying to figure out how…and exactly _what_ all just happened. I uh, don’t really know what to say.”

 _Ahh..,_ thought David, _Ah don’t know what ta say either, but ah can’t say that now because she just did._ He cleared his throat. It wasn’t like they never talked or trained or hung out outside of trials—they did, especially recently. But there was so much, after everything that had been going on recently, that he wanted to ask her about and knew he probably shouldn’t, and he could tell the same thing was going through head about him. To make things worse, they both knew almost nothing about the events leading up to some of their friends going missing, so there just wasn’t a whole lot of that subject for them _to_ talk about, even though they should.

“’s okay,” David replied, rubbing the back of his head in some vain hope that would buy him time to think of something to add. “…You’d no idea? ’Bout any of this?”

Laurie shook her head. “No. I thought we all agreed that the killers are terrible and vicious and…never going to change.” She got a faraway look in her eyes as she finished, and the line off her mouth set.

“Right. Ahm I’m the same boat,” answered David. “Them two’d best be okay. All this’s a wreck.” That comment didn’t really seem to be helping, and even he felt worse after he said it, so he hurriedly added, “…Least this means we might get to take a shot at one.”

“That never works though,” interjected Laurie, absently fiddling with the sharpened stake she was holding as they walked.

“Works for you,” David countered. “Ah’ve seen you stab your fair share’o blokes.”

Laurie glanced over, a little surprised. “Well, I guess that’s true. But it never seems to do much.”

“Does more’n I can,” replied David, making a punching motion as if taking a swing at an imaginary training bag in front of him. “Ah could drop an acme hammer _Looney Tunes_ style on ‘em an the thing’d just bounce off.”

He’d been trying to make her laugh or maybe at least smile, but her expression became one of righteous anger instead.  “Yeah, it isn’t fair,” agreed Laurie. “We’re at a big enough disadvantage with no real weapons, and being so much smaller than most of them. Those monsters are hard enough to kill without stacking things further, I should know.”

“From before ya came here?” asked David, very interested in possibly having a non-intrusive chance to hear more about something he’d been curious about since Laurie had admitted to knowing the Shape before.

She nodded. “I stabbed him through the neck with a knitting needle.”

“Shite, not bad,” said David, having a good bit of fun imaging that.

She noticed the look on David’s face and added, “Then I stabbed him in the eye with a clothing hanger.”

“Did it at least slow ‘m down?” asked David, disbelieving.

“Sort of,” answered Laurie thoughtfully, “It took him a minute to get back up, but he didn’t seem any worse for the wear.”

“That when you got taken?” asked David, “Y’know, to here?”

“No,” Laurie sighed, “That was later. First I stabbed him.”

“Still nothin’?” asked David, almost angry on her behalf as she nodded. “For fuck’s sake, he’s a human is he no?”

“Yeah,” said Laurie a little doubtfully, “He should be. But by all accounts, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“Anythin’ else?” David prodded, very involved in the story at this point.

“Yeah,” Laurie replied. “He got shot in the chest.”

“A gun?” asked David.

“A pistol. From…I don’t know, maybe ten feet? And it was…” she thought and counted on her fingers, “S—no, five times.”

“Jesus Christ,” said David.

A smile played at the corner of Laurie’s mouth at his horror. “That was before he fell backwards off a second story balcony.”

“An he got up?” asked David, knowing the answer, but needing to hear it.

“He always gets back up,” Laurie replied deadpan. “He’s got the survivability of a cockroach.”

David let out a slow breath. “That’s fucked.”

She nodded, twirling the stake in her fingers. “Too bad you all stopped me,” she said almost absently, like it was more a passing thought than an important one. “I think we both would have disappeared. Who knows if there’ll ever be another chance to really get rid of him.”

David really didn’t know how to respond to that. Complex personal issues weren’t his strong suit when it came to talking things out, because he just hadn’t had a whole lot of experience with it, so he thought for a second and then just said, “Well, ahm glad ya did no. I prefer some real good’n some real shite together to none ah the both.”

Her stride faltered for a moment and she blinked, thinking that over. “Maybe,” she agreed slowly, “I don’t really know.”

They kept walking in silence for a few seconds.

“So,” she said, glancing over, “How about you? How come you can take such a beating and get back up?”

He shrugged, pushing through some waist high bushes. “Guess ah’ve always been that way. Got inta scraps a lot as a lad. Big thing about fights is you got to be ready to get hurt, ‘cause unless you’re fight’n some daft weaklin’ ya will be. Bigger thing is, fight ain’t over till some’n gives up. You do no always have to land the best blow, or deal the most damage, you just got be able to take what hits you longer’n they can.”

“Smart,” she agreed, “And true. So, if hypothetically there were someone who can get shot five times and take it, how would you kill them?”

 _Oh shite did ah put mah foot in mah mouth?_ David looked over and saw she was trying to hide a smile. “Shoot’m six times’n run ‘m over with a car?” he offered.

Laurie laughed. It was one of the only times he had ever seen that. It made him smile too.

There was a sudden change in her face, then, and he saw the color drain from her cheeks.

“Laurie?” he whispered, mind immediately shifting into trial mode.

“He’s here,” she said quietly, eyes staring dead ahead at something David couldn’t see. He watched as she took a step backwards, like there was something coming for her.

“You can see ‘m?” asked David quietly, trying to see anything himself past the trees.

Eye still fixed on the woods ahead, Laurie flinched suddenly, like she was sympathetically taking a blow. “He’s over there,” she said, pointing straight ahead of them. Slowly, she let the arm drop. “He can see me.”

“Far?” prompted David, only just remembering Laurie could often sense a killer’s presence from a distance.

“Yeah,” she replied steadily, “But not far enough.”

“He comin’?” asked David, hefting the long spear he’d gotten from Jake’s stash, ready to lose another impossible fight.

“He’s trying,” she replied, looking a little less pale than she had before. “I don’t think he can. It’s like he’s hit a wall.”

“We should go, then,” said David, lowering the spear just a little. “He’s no what we’re after.”

Laurie nodded slowly, and David turned to go.

As he went, Laurie started to follow, but she hesitated half-turned and glanced back at the outline she could see shimmering through the trees and the dark mist. He was watching her, unmoving. She turned back around and took a slow step towards him and his prison, tilting her head far over to the side like she’d seen him do a few times, like she remembered from a long time ago. Wondering.

There was a delay where nothing happened at all, and then she saw his outline shift and his head tilt in response, until both of them were almost looking at the other sideways. _Huh,_ she thought, watching. _Why did you used to do this all the time? Were you confused, or do you just see better this way?_

She turned her back to him then and went after David, but as she reached the foothold she knew would be the last one she would be able to sense him from, she glanced over her shoulder one last time and saw him, still watching her, still unmoving. His head was still tilted, but a little less than before—back to his own usual angle. There was an urge in Laurie’s chest to do something, but she didn’t know what. Call out? Flip him off, like Meg would have done? Ask him why he was like this, or if he could please tell her in advance his recovery rate for being run over in a car? _I feel guilty,_ Laurie thought absently, _Because I didn’t keep my promise to you. That’s such bullshit. You’re a murderer—you’ve killed me. You’ve killed everyone I love. I don’t owe you anything, even my word._

Laurie wanted him dead. She knew it, and she meant it. But there was something else to it too. Something she didn’t know how to put words to. Something she wished wasn’t true—something that hurt. A little like familiarity. The only constant, the only relationship, of whatever kind. For forty years. Which made it something.

 _That’s sad,_ Laurie told herself, watching her brother’s silhouette across the dark woods, the wind brushing slowly through her hair. _That’s so lonely it’s sad, and you can never tell anyone that. It makes you sound weak, and crazy. And no one would understand enough to even forgive you._

“Laurie?” It was David, calling from a little way off. She looked and saw him waiting.

 _You’ll finally die someday,_ she thought, squaring her shoulders as she looked back at the hazy suggestion of Michael she was almost too far away to see. _And I’ll be there to see it._ Then she turned, and walked out of range, eyes set straight ahead. No more looking back.

 

* * *

 

 

“So, you’re assuming he got reset?” asked Nea as Quentin finished doing his best at giving them the short version of the past few weeks.

“That’s what I said all along,” said Feng, sounding superior, “But nobody listened to me. ‘He’s not a robot Feng’—‘You’re ideas are weirder’.”

“You said you thought he glitched,” corrected Nea.

“Well, that’s kind of what Quentin’s describing,” argued Feng. “I mean, something going wrong with him that makes him act like he’s not supposed to, and the Entity goes and restores factory settings. Glitch: reset.”

“So, you were right from the Entity’s point of view,” grinned Nea, having maybe a little too much fun ribbing.

Feng huffed.

“But yeah, to answer your a lot earlier question, that is what we think,” Quentin added in cautiously.

“And you got him back in one trial? That’s got to be a record,” said Feng, genuinely looking impressed.

“Well, I don’t know that they ‘got him back,’” replied Quentin, “Kate said he was looking sort of confused by Dwight and Claudette right near the end, but that’s not the same as stopping.”

“Should we be assuming if they’re still with him it’s sort of a, uh,” Nea pretended to pull the trigger of a finger gun, “Shoot on sight kind of deal?”

“I would prefer not to,” said Quentin, giving her a dubious look, “We don’t really want him to be dead, do we? Even if we can’t get him to _ever_ listen to us, he’s still easier to deal with than a lot of them when he’s confused, and I’d personally rather be in a Wraith trial than one with, like, the Pig. Plus, he barely ever moris people.”

“Okay, then a punch on sight?” asked Nea.

“Yeah, that’s probably accurate,” agreed Quentin.

“K. So, do we just keep walking till we find something?” asked Feng, “That’s kinda what it sounded like Jake wanted.”

“Yeah, I think when we get close we echolocate though,” Nea offered.

“Echolocate?” repeated Feng, looking aghast at the mental image of a literal interpretation of that.

“You mean we listen?” asked Quentin.

“No, I mean we try to scream really loud and bounce our vocals off objects—yes I mean we listen,” said Nea. “Listen and follow the sounds back.”

“I guess that’s what we have to work with, anyway,” agreed Quentin after an awkward second of silence.

They kept walking for a minute, sometimes all three abreast, sometimes Nea and Feng a pace ahead, sometimes behind, sometimes single file. After a bit, Nea cleared her throat and said, “So, how you holding up?”

“What,” asked Quentin, who had been deep in thought going over everything he could remember about Autohaven in case a change in the types of trees or grass might help them find the right direction.

“You. Holding up,” prompted Nea.

“Uh,” Quentin started to answer automatically and stopped, because he didn’t know what to say. “I—I guess?”

Nea nodded thoughtfully, and he saw a look pass between her and Feng.

“I’ve gotten kind of lucky recently,” said Feng, “Not much Trapper. Mostly the Spirit and the Doctor, sometimes the Hag.”

Nea gave Feng a kind of disbelieving look.

“Hopefully it spreads around. We could all use a break,” added Feng quickly.

“Uh, yeah,” replied Quentin, fairly confused.

“Are you sure you’re cool though?” asked Nea again after a few paces in silence, “I mean, you never seem to sleep—do you sleep?”

“No,” answered Quentin immediately, “No, I don’t.” _I can’t,_ he added internally. “But I’m used to it.”

Nea and Feng traded glances again.

“Well, if you ever want to trade,” Feng offered after a second, “I have some toolboxes I’ve pim—set up pretty well. And no med kits, which I know you’re good at finding. So.”

Nea looked like she might die.

 _What the hell is happening?_ wondered Quentin, looking from one to the other.

“Uh, sure, I’ll trade if you need some. I could just give you one,” Quentin offered.

Feng looked uncomfortable but didn’t say anything, just kind of nodded.

They went a few more feet and Nea turned to Quentin again and said “Look, I know I don’t really know what shit’s like with you, but if you ever want to talk about it…”

 _Ooooh._ “Wait,” said Quentin, stopping. “Did—did you two pick me as your third wheel so you would have an excuse to check up on me after the Kreuger trial?”

They both looked guilty.

“Uhhh,” said Feng, like she didn’t want to answer.

“You know you could have just come and talked to me, right?” asked Quentin. It was sort of stupid, but at the same time, it made him feel better that they were trying—albeit badly.

“Yeah, but we’re both kind of shit at that,” said Feng. Nea nodded her agreement.

Quentin looked down and smiled and shook his head. “Okay. Well, thanks.” He looked back up at both of them. “I mean it. But I also don’t really want to talk about it. Ever.” He didn’t want to think about it either, but that wasn’t happening.

They both nodded. “I get that,” said Nea, voice low and dark. Quentin remembered the Kreuger trial he’d been in with her well. It was no wonder.

“We should keep going,” said Quentin, indicating the waiting forest ahead. They did.

“I don’t know a lot because mostly people don’t talk about it,” Feng said after a second of them walking in silence, “And I’ll leave you alone about this after, but I know Meg said you died last. On purpose. And, uh, that’s fucked up, but it’s also pretty hardcore. That you’d do that. So.” She awkwardly went to put a hand on his shoulder and chickened out at the last second, switching it out for a friendly, gentle shoulder punch.

Honestly, so much shit had happened to every one of them despite him trying his best to protect the others that Quentin hadn’t really felt like he’d been able to do much at all. So much damage had been done, taking more of it barely seemed to matter. It had felt a lot like failing. Utterly and completely.

Feng hadn’t been there, and she didn’t know, but even so, for some reason her saying that made him feel at the same time like crying, and a little less beaten.

“Thanks,” he managed quietly, and then focused on where he was walking.

The walk was silent then for a minute. It was getting darker, if that was possible, and the fog thicker. Still, that was a change at least, so maybe it was a good thing.

“So, to wildly change subjects,” Nea offered after a bit, “I was thinking. We should throw a birthday party.”

“We should what?” asked Quentin, completely not expecting this topic line.

“For Laurie—well, that was the idea at first,” Nea corrected herself. “Kinda snowballed from there.”

“She might not 100% like getting forty birthday parties,” Feng commented, “I wouldn’t. It’d make me feel old.”

“Well, she’s obviously not old,” Nea countered. “And anyway, I was thinking we do it for everyone. We’ve all been here at least a year, most of us unfortunately more.”

That hit Quentin. Another thing he’d been trying not to think about. _2010…2017? Maybe worse? Fuck, seven years is a long time. Fuck that’s a lot of… So much can happen in seven years. I should be twenty four. Or older._

“You okay?” asked Nea, noticing the look on his face.

“Yeah,” Quentin answered automatically, shaking himself out of his reverie. He was never okay, and he’d been asked that so many times his default response was just to lie at this point. There wasn’t even a stage where his mind checked to see what he wanted the answer to be any more—he just always said yes. But, if there was never any okay to be, maybe that was the natural way for things like this to go.

“Well, anyway, I think that it’s fucked up she’s been stuck here so long,” Nea continued, turning back to Feng, “But I think it’s less bad if we honor the good part of that. You know—like, dude, Laurie has survived this _bullshit hell_ for—hang on, 1978 to 2000….lets say 18 to make the math easy…Okay, so I was right—yeah, forty years. Like DAMN. Can you imagine? It’s bad enough she’s been stuck here so long alone,” Nea continued, holding a huge pine branch out of the way for Feng and resisting the urge to let go of it so it would smack Quentin and/or Feng right in the face, like a true gentleman, “She shouldn’t have to have gone forty years without anything good. I think we should give her like the best fucking birthday party ever. Maybe do a whole week-everyone gets a birthday day after day, we get super waisted, you and I try to set up other couples maybe,” she added, nudging Feng with an elbow.

“Okay, you might have a point,” Feng considered. “Birthdays were never a big thing for me at home or after, but you should celebrate accomplishments, and birthdays are celebrating being not dead yet, which is the biggest accomplishment _in_ this hellhole.”

“Right!” said Nea, happy someone seemed to get it. “Everything has been super shit lately, and there’s not a whole lot we can do, but we can at least throw a party to celebrate that, in spite of everything, we’re still here. I think it’d do us all hella good. We can’t get back the stuff we lost or lose the shit that happened, and most of that is super shitty shit, but we should say ‘fuck that,’ and get drunk to celebrate how much we _have_ done. It hasn’t been normal life, but we’ve saved people. We aren’t alone anymore. I have a girlfriend, Laurie got to sort of experience _Adaptation_ and somehow Meg _still_ got me to fucking cry at the end?”

“One more step removed. It’s the way that movie was meant to be seen,” Feng agreed.

“Exactly,” said Nea, grinning, “Dwight accidentally responded to me when I said ‘Hey dad, do you have a second,’ and didn’t even notice after that he’d done it, Ace finally nailed that Ginger Spice solo. There’s been real good shit, too. We should get that. We get _shit_ in this place. That’s something we can claim.”

 _She has a point,_ thought Quentin, watching the other two talk. _I don’t think there’s anything that can ever change the fact that there is nothing good about being stuck here for seven years, except that Kreuger got stuck in here too. But…there have been some good things that happened. I don’t think I’m a strong enough person to ever be able to say I’d pick this again if I had the choice, but at the same time, I am glad I met them all. I’m glad that I can help them here. Even if I fuck up a lot._

“You’ve convinced me. I’m on board,” said Feng, pausing try and get a good glimpse through the trees up ahead. “Also, is it shitty that I’m not worried about Dwight and Claudette right now? Like, intellectually, I am, but emotionally I feel nothing because the idea of them not being okay is kind of…incomprehensible to me.”

“Well I’m sort of freaked out,” answered Quentin, “But the fact that you have that much faith actually makes me feel a little less nervous…I think.”

“It’s kinda shitty,” said Nea in a no-sugar-coating way. Feng looked betrayed. “I’m kidding,” she said, smiling, “You’re probably just having a hard time registering this. Or like he said, you have hella faith in them. Plus, I’m mostly talking about anything else to distract myself, but it doesn’t feel _super_ real to me either. Nothing like this has ever happened. I can’t really wrap my head around it. But… They’ll be fine, right?”

In the distance, they heard a sound they were all too familiar with, washing fear over them like a beacon lighting up the night. All three of them froze.

“Ah, shit,” said Nea quietly, crouching, Quentin and Feng quick to join her. “Found one, I guess.”

“We should get closer, huh?” asked Feng, looking dead inside. “Just in case?”

“We’re looking for the Wraith, though, right?” whispered Quentin. “So, we should just keep moving until—” they heard a human scream shatter the stillness of the night. “Yeah, we should go right now.”

 

* * *

 

 

As they moved through the still yard, Dwight focused on his footing, trying to make sure not to snap a twig or stumble. At the same time, he was doing his best to watch the yard.

It wasn’t like any kind of terrain he’d ever seen himself. There were trees—sometimes spread around thickly, like the patch they’d fought through to get here, but they all looked wrong…Try, and sick, like too much sun had made them grow wrong. The moonlight made everything look a little blueish, but he could tell the grass under his feet was burned yellow, and there was so much...brush. It wasn’t overgrown in the way he was used to thinking of, but it certainly looked like no one had touched the place in a while. And all the time, that one white porch swing kept swaying in the breeze, creaking, moving and setting him off with each false alarm it gave. Further away, mostly obscured by the fog, he could just make out a white house. Chipped pain—old. With a porch. _What the hell is this place?_ thought Dwight, not really wanting to find out. He couldn’t even really put his finger on what felt off about it, but he was wading through a sense of foreboding. _Something bad happened here. Something really, really bad._

If directions could be trusted at all in the fog, the way out would be on the opposite side from where they’d entered, and if they didn’t go far enough before trying the woods again they would just end up in a different Killer’s back porch, and considering one of those on the right of this area had been either the Preschool or Haddonfield, there was no way in hell they could chance that.

Dwight swallowed hard and focused on where he was going, doing his best to shoot Claudette a reassuring look. She smiled back, looking about as afraid as he felt, and they kept going.

Beneath his hands, the Wraith shifted.

_Oh fuck._

He didn’t open his eyes, but he moved a little, like someone might try to turn in their sleep, and Dwight heard a weak, pained sound come from his throat.

Claudette heard it too, and he saw her face light up with relief and happiness, and then what had hit him first hit her second and the happiness faded and was replaced by fear.

 _You have to start waking up at the worst possible time?_ thought Dwight in a controlled panic, _Fuck, if we don’t keep him quiet…_

It had been fear of being spotted in here that got Dwight initially, but it suddenly hit him as a secondary concern that, if the Wraith woke up, he might try to kill them himself.

“What do we do?” Claudette whispered, almost inaudible.

 _Shit. Shit—shit—I…_ “Gag him?” offered Dwight quietly, feeling himself start to sweat.

“I don’t think that’ll help us convince him of anything when he wakes up,” Claudette whispered back. “We’ll look like the badguys.”

The Wraith groaned, unconscious face twisting in pain. The sound was louder this time, and they both stopped moving and crouched, holding their breath and watching for any sign of life from the farm house as Dwight placed a hand over the Wraith’s mouth.

There was no response from the house. No light going on. Nothing. And then, something. Hard to place, and surreal.

“The fuck was that?” mouthed Dwight.

Claudette didn’t answer. Her eyes were huge and fixed on the farm house.

They heard it again then. A sound almost like a pig, coming from the house.

_Shit. No. There’s no way._

Dwight’s breathing sped up and he looked around desperately for somewhere better to hide. Beneath his hand, he felt the Wraith’s head move.

No more noise came from the house. They waited in silence, and the seconds ticked on Dwight’s watch from ten to sixty.

“Should we?” Claudette mouthed, indicating the way they’d been going before with her head.

Dwight nodded, and as carefully and quietly as possible, the two of them lifted the Wraith and inched forward again. Slowly, so slowly it was painful. Dwight was freezing and his arms ached from the strain of holding up the Wraith for so long, but together they made it past the left side of the house, keeping as far from it as possible without forsaking the cover of the tall grass and bushes nearby. Dwight barely registered a weathervane on his left as they passed it, it clanking against its post in the breeze and filling the air with a dull metallic thump.

_So close. We’re so close._

They made it past the side of the house, Dwight in the lead. There was a little section of the wall that protruded past the rest, and as he stepped past it, Dwight sensed movement before he saw it, and then something dull and heavy slammed into the side of his head and his vision went black.

 

The next time he became aware of anything, it was that everything was hazy and painful. Someone was screaming, and there was another sound—a bad sound, like buzzing. He couldn’t remember what it was. His head hurt so much, he thought maybe he was dying, and he couldn’t move.

Dwight fought to open his eyes and when he did, the world was fuzzy and he could barely see anything. There was something small and bent in a strange shape near his face, and something much bigger was in front of him, moving. It…it didn’t make sense.

The voice that was screaming. He knew the voice.

There was another sound, like a pig shrieking. And a chainsaw. That—that was the buzzing. …The screaming—the screaming?

Dwight tried to move again but his body wouldn’t respond. He felt cold.

_I…I can’t…What’s…_

There was something huge near him, coming closer. Everything was blurry, like he didn’t have his glasses, and he couldn’t see what it was, but the chainsaw sound was coming with it.

 _My…_ He recognized the shape in front of him as his glasses, broken. Laying a few inches from his face. _What…happened…?_

He couldn’t think right. This was bad and some part of him knew that, but he couldn’t even feel afraid. His head hurt so much, and it was too hard. Too hard to do anything. He felt his eyes trying to shut and gave in to the compulsion as he watched the blood-specked boots getting closer.

“Get away from him!”

The voice was familiar. He fought to open his eyes again and did. Groaning, he managed to move his neck just enough to look up from the feet to the person above them. Yellow apron, face that wasn’t a face. He knew who this was…he knew…he…

But he couldn’t remember. All he could remember was to be afraid, and doing its best on its own without the ability to think right, his body tried drag itself away, but it couldn’t. His arms wouldn’t move. The thing above him was holding something big and loud over its head and he realized suddenly that it was going to bring that thing down on him and he would be dead.

“I don’t…” Dwight managed, looking up, his mind desperately fighting for the only thing it could do to try and save him, “…I don’t want to die.”

Whatever was looming over him didn’t seem to care.

There was a sudden movement from the side, and the thing cried out and changed direction mid-swing, swiping left instead of down at him.

Weakly, Dwight turned his head to look and saw someone standing there, holding something long and sharp, blood dripping from the tip.

_C…Claudette…?_

“I said stay away from him!” he heard her shout, shaking as she held the Wraith’s blade out in front of her.

The huge thing in the apron swung the chainsaw at her, screaming like a wild boar. It was horrifying to watch. This—this thing. So completely inhuman sounding, flailing about with a spinning saw, screeching, a face that wasn’t a face.

 _I have to help her,_ thought Dwight, and he struggled again to move. He saw the fingers on one of his arms twitch. _What happened to me?_

Somehow the chainsaw didn’t hit Claudette; he saw it slam into a wood fence as she hit the ground and rolled. She made it back to her feet as the thing in the apron wheeled on her, and to his surprise even as disoriented as he was, Dwight heard her shout, “Come get me you sick fuck!”

It did, chasing after her, screaming like a deranged pig as she bolted for the far side of the house.

“Wait,” Dwight said, voice hoarse, trying to reach his hand out towards her, “Don’t.” _She’ll die…I…_

There was a new sound. Something coming fast from the other direction—from sort of behind him, and he couldn’t turn to see what it was, and an awful feeling spread over him as he lay there, helpless, listening to the pounding of feet get louder and louder.

Something slid to stop behind him and grabbed him, picking him up and resting him on their knees, turning his head gently up towards them.

 _…Jake?_ He thought, confused. Without his glasses, Dwight was close to blind, but it looked like him. “Jake?” he tried out loud, knowing that was impossible and hoping it was true.

Jake’s features flooded with relief and Dwight heard him exhale like he hadn’t been breathing until just then. “He’s alive,” he heard Jake say to someone else, turning his head to look back over his shoulder. “Find Claudette.”

There were more footsteps, and then Jake was looking back down at him, moving his chin to get a look at the side of his head.

“Talk to me Dwight,” said Jake, voice steady, “You’re pretty fucked up.”

“I don’t know what happened,” said Dwight weakly. “I can’t remember.”

“Do you know where you are?” asked Jake, using one hand to pull his scarf off and hold it in place as he started ripping it into pieces with his teeth, his other hand still holding Dwight’s head steady.

“The woods,” Dwight answered, unable to think of anything better. “Where’s Claudette?” he asked, suddenly worried, and already unable to judge the span of time between when she’d run off being chased and Jake had arrived.

“It’s okay,” said Jake, tugging off one of his gloves and using it as padding while he started to tie bandages around Dwight’s head. “Kate’s got her.”

Dwight wanted to believe that, but he could still hear the chainsaw on the far side of the house.

“Go,” said Dwight weakly, “Go help her. I’ll be okay.”

“I’ll go in a minute,” said Jake, “Just hold still.”

The pain in his head intensified as Jake applied pressure to it, and Dwight lost consciousness again. He couldn’t have been out for more than a few seconds, though, because when he opened his eyes Jake was only just letting go of the completed bandage around his head. Looking up at his friend’s face, Dwight had never seen anyone look so worried before.

“Am I dying?” asked Dwight, swallowing hard.

Jake looked down at him in surprise, caught off guard by the question, and quickly shook his head, but Dwight couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth. “You’ll live. Just try to stay still. The sledgehammer got you pretty solid.”

_Sledgehammer? …The…Cannibal…That’s it. That’s…the apron, the chainsaw. The Cannibal._

There was a cry from behind the house that sounded like Kate’s voice, and Dwight saw Jake’s head snap over in that direction to look. Then he heard it, too. The chainsaw was coming back.

In one quick motion, Jake scooped him up in his arms like he weighed nothing.

“I’ll slow you down,” pleaded Dwight, unable to physically resist, but Jake didn’t listen.

He made it to his feet and spun on his heel, moving as fast as he could towards the low white fence the chainsaw had hit in some vain hope of cover. They only made it about ten feet before there was a roar behind them as the Cannibal closed the distance, and Jake shouted and went down as it hit him in the back with the saw.

On impact, Jake lost his grip, and Dwight hit the ground hard, rolling left a few feet before skidding to a stop. Blackness started to close around the edges of his vision, but he fought it, not willing to pass out completely this time.

“Jake!” he called desperately, unable to see more than a few feet in the blackness with his weak vision. The Cannibal heard, and he saw its white and yellow outline shift, turning towards him.

There was the _thunk_ of an object hitting something then, and the Cannibal screamed in pain and fury, and when it turned to look, Dwight could see a long thin something sticking out of its back, like it had been shot by an arrow.

There were two forms coming, a bigger one from straight behind the Cannibal and the smaller one from off to the side. The bigger one was holding a long club of some kind, brandishing it like a weapon. _Kate?_ Dwight saw the Cannibal screech and swing its hammer at her. Despite his size and the weapon’s weight, it came fast and sure, with the finality of a wrecking ball, and she didn’t have time to move, so Kate tried to block the blow with her log. The swing snapped the branch in half, leaving her weaponless, and she tried to jump back out of the way as he swung again, but the hammer was quicker and caught her in the ribs, sending her flying backwards. She was too blurry for him to see an expression on, but Dwight saw her arms give out as she tried to pull herself back up. The Cannibal just stood there for a moment, watching her try to crawl away, and then it revved the chainsaw.

“Hey!” shouted Dwight with all the strength he had, trying and failing to even get himself up on one elbow. “Over here!”

It turned and looked at him, and waddled over in that sickeningly excited way it always did. Dwight felt fear well up inside and choke him as it did what he had hoped it would and left Kate.

Stopping above him, the Cannibal placed a foot on his chest and flipped him over from his side onto his back.

 _Fuck. I’m going to die for real this time,_ thought Dwight, not even knowing how to feel about that. It had never seemed like something that could happen, so he had stopped being afraid of it until now. More than afraid though, he was…sad. _I’m going to die._

It brought the chainsaw down and there was a flash of movement from the side of his vision and sparks flew over his head as Claudette threw herself between them, holding the Wraith’s blade out in front of her like a shield and the Cannibal’s chainsaw caught on it and fought to crush its way through the blade, making the tearing sound of metal on metal.

She looked terrified, struggling with all her might to hold up something far too strong for her above him, riding on desperation.

Leaning into its swing, the Cannibal shoved down against her as hard as it could and she fell back, losing her balance and stumbling. The blade of the saw sliced passed her and Dwight harmlessly, digging into the dirt at the Cannibal’s feed, and he dragged it back up faster than Dwight would have thought imaginable and brought it down at Claudette again as she struggled to recover her footing. As he watched it happen, Dwight knew there was no way she was going to be able to catch it fast enough.

Suddenly, something huge and dark tore past Dwight like a streak of lightning. In one impossibly fast motion its hand shot out and snatched the back of Claudette’s shirt, yanking her backwards as it moved forward and interposed itself between her and the coming blade. There was a flick of its left wrist and a metal bell appeared in the outstretched hand as if summoned from the ether, and Dwight suddenly realized the thing standing over him was the Wraith. It moved, no hesitation, no wasted movement or time, reaching behind itself with its right arm and tearing its scythe out of Claudette’s hand at the same time as it held up its left and caught the coming chainsaw in the teeth of wailing bell. There was an awful sound of metal screeching as the chainsaw caught in the bell’s teeth, and as the items impacted, the Wraith shifted his weight, leaning his left shoulder back with the weight of the chainsaw, and leveraging his right forward as he used his transferred speed to bring the sickle up, digging in deep across the Cannibal’s belly, splitting it open and sending blood spilling out over himself and Dwight and Claudette behind.

The Cannibal screamed in pain and fell back, trying at once to step further away and break the chainsaw free so he could swing it right, at the Wraith, but the Wraith stepped forward as the Cannibal stepped back, unwilling to lose the distance that was enabling him to keep the chainsaw at bay, and he swung the back of the sickle up and across, slamming the flat of it into the Cannibal’s nose and sending blood shooting from the broken tip. The Cannibal screeched like a boar and grabbed at the Wraith’s sickle in desperation and anger, and seeing it coming the Wraith dropped to the ground and rolled out of range as the Cannibal swung the chainsaw down after him, carving into the gravel where he’d just been. He came up on one knee, blade readied as the Cannibal wheeled on him, blood dripping from its belly.

It lunged forward and swung the chainsaw and the Wraith rose to meet him and caught it in the teeth of his blade and they were locked in a grapple for a second, struggling to come out on top, until the Wraith suddenly shifted his weight backwards and kicked the Cannibal in the stomach where he’d cut him. The Cannibal fell back again, wheezing and screaming in fury and pain, and the Wraith stood there in front of him, blade at the ready, watching, chest slowly heaving from exertion, but making no sound.

Furious, the Cannibal revved his saw and lunged, swinging erratically, backing the Wraith towards Dwight and Claudette again and the wall beside them.

It swung wildly as it moved forward, trying to find a way past the blade blocking it. It took a hard swipe at the Wraith’s head, and the Wraith barely deflected the blow and moved back, giving a little ground. Dwight couldn’t see very well, but it seemed like the Wraith was slowing down. Maybe tiring out.

The Wraith stumbled, suddenly, and the Cannibal lunged. Dwight thought the blow would carve right through the Wraiths’ chest, but he managed to move, and the saw Grazed his arm, tearing a chunk of flesh from the side as the tall man stumbled backwards, off-balance. Unrelenting, the chainsaw carved on, and the Wraith fell back again, trying to get solid footing and keep out of the saw’s range, barely parrying or moving out of range of each swipe as the Cannibal swung at him again and again.

 _He’s not gonna make it,_ thought Dwight as the Wraith struggled back. He could tell the Cannibal thought it too. It was pressing on harder and faster, screeching as it drove the chainsaw after its opponent. And then, in the middle of a swing from the chainsaw and with a burst of strength and speed Dwight hadn’t imagined he had left in him, the Wraith exploded up, under, and past the blade, launching himself at the Cannibal’s head. The motion was like watching a wolf leap to tear the throat out of a bear, the blade in his hand held so close to the Wraith’s chest as he moved Dwight couldn’t tell how he had any control where it landed, and then he was past the chainsaw and the sickle dug into the Cannibal’s chest, hard, prongs settling in deep. Just as fast, the Wraith shoved off the cannibal and stepped back like a dancer, wrenching the blade free as he did, tearing open the Cannibal’s chest as his sickle ripped through him.

The Cannibal stumbled back, making a sound like a dying hog and staring down at its bloody chest and the missing circular chunk of itself that was supposed to be there in disbelief, then fell to the ground, landing flat on its back on not moving as the sound of the chainsaw died out beside it.

The Wraith stood there over them all in the moonlight, breath fogging in the night air, and made a sound like an entirely different sort of beast. A low, rumbling sound, almost something like a growl as he looked down at the body of his fallen foe.

Then he turned his head and looked back at them, blood shimmering on the teeth of his blade in the moonlight and dripping down his reopened chest wound and arm.

Dwight had no idea what he would do, but as the Wraith looked down at him and Claudette, all of the strength from a moment before dissolved. He fell to his knees and the blade slid out of his fingers, landing harmlessly in the grass beside him. The Wraith hung there on his knees for a second, breathing hard, staring down blankly at his empty hand and then back up at them, and Dwight saw Claudette beside him, staring back at the Wraith in a mixture of wonder and horror, and then the Wraith pitched forward and fell to the ground and was still, the only sounds in the yard the slow tapping of the weathervane, the creaking of the white porch swing, and the slow dripping of blood.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun research/trivia: The injury training Claudette is remembering is recommended first aid for a Sucking Chest Wound, which is an injury caused by holes in the chest--commonly puncture wounds--which disturb the way airflow is supposed to work in the body. When someone with a sucking chest wound tries to breathe, they accidentally pull air in through the hole, which can cause lung collapse from built up air pressure. If not treated, this can easily lead to shock and death. Luckily for her, she did not have to deal with lung collapse. In the event you ever have to treat someone for a similar wound, a taped down clean plastic such as a driver's license or ID can work and is a much better option than parts of a shoe, assuming you have choices. Also, the Ginger Spice solo Ace nailed is the one in Two Become One.
> 
> Big thanks again to everyone who reads for all the support! I know this chapter is rather massive, but in the end I liked it better as a single unit than multiple chapters. I really hope you all enjoy it. I had a lot of fun exploring so many different angles and characters and the world itself, and I'm very excited to continue from here. My sincerest thanks again to you all--It really means a lot.


	26. The Wraith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at camp with a half-dead Wraith and several of their own injuries, the survivors try to figure out their next step. Injured and captive, Philip tries to come to terms with who he is.

 

Soft mud squished under his feet as he struggled to rush through it, grabbing at his ankles and slowing him down. He stumbled in the slick, faintly salty substance, and caught himself with one hand, the other clutching his burden to his chest.

_C-careful. Almost lost her._

The little boy fought back to his feet in the thick mud, tugging free his short legs a bit more carefully this time, the ground making the hollow sucking sound of unforgiving mud as he tried to regain his balance. Pausing with one foot and both hands free, the boy made reassuring sounds to the soggy creature he held tightly against his chest before more carefully finding another foothold amidst the muddy bank.

“It’s okay,” he said, wobbling one arm in the air for balance as he took another step. “I have you.”

His white and green checkered shirt was worn and soaked through and spattered with mud and filth from the river now, but he didn’t care, and as fast as he could, slipping and sliding but not falling again, the boy tore his way through the last ten feet of bank and back onto the safety of firmer ground.

Falling to his knees, the child gently lay the waterlogged kitten down on the grass bank and stroked its head, willing some life back into it.

“It’s okay,” he said again, running his finger over the bridge its nose, smoothing fur that had once been mostly white. “You’re safe now. I won’t hurt you.”

The kitten’s eyes stayed shut, matted hair clinging to its tiny, underfed body, droplets of water running past its nose, pink with a little black blotch. The creature was so small that, as little as the boy was himself, it was still only about the length of his hands. As the animal stayed still, worry flickered across the boy’s face, and he moved his hand to the kitten’s belly and gently pushed on it, as if hoping that might dislodge the water in its lungs.

“Philip?” came his mother’s voice from a few feet away, up on the street. “What are you doing, baby?”

“I saved it,” said Philip, glancing from the kitten to his mother for a second. She stood there, black and green head wrap whose green matched his shirt, skirt tied at the waist, looking beautiful and perfect and like home and safety and only good things. As solid as a mountain. Philip looked back down at the kitten, and gently pressed on its stomach again, knowing it might have swallowed water, but aware of how much bigger than it he was that he was afraid to hurt it by anything more than the gentlest touch.

“The kitten?” asked his mother, taking a few steps closer and looking down at it.

“Yes,” said Philip as he carefully began to stroke the length of the kitten’s back, hoping to comfort it and dry it and wake it all at the same time. “I saw it in the river.”

“That’s how you got so muddy,” said his mother, coming to a stop behind him and looking down over his shoulder.

She watched in silence for a moment as her nine-year-old boy huddled over the waterlogged kitten, stroking its fur and staring intently, waiting for a sign of life he knew was coming.

“Baby,” he heard her say after a few seconds. “I’m sorry. It’s gone.”

“No,” said Philip, shaking his head and not looking up. “I can still save it.” He picked it up gingerly in one hand and continued to stroke its head. “It’ll wake up in a second—you’ll see.” Eyes fixed on the kitten, he prayed it would move. Open its eyes and make a sound. Sneeze water all over him, or try to struggle free. Maybe even choose to stay. But nothing happened, and the seconds lengthened and grew shadows as he waited. “It was alive,” he added after a moment, voice unsure, willing his belief to be true.

“It’s okay baby,” said his mother, resting a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. “You did your best.”

“No,” said Philip again, not ready for that to be true. _You can’t be dead. I wanted to save you._ He shifted and held the still form in both hands, stroking its head with his thumb. It was so little.

“Philip. It’s okay,” he felt the hand on his shoulder squeeze reassuringly. Soft pressure. “Nothing’s ever really dead while it’s remembered.”

The hand let go.

The voice was one he knew, but it wasn’t his mother’s, and as he looked down at the drowned kitten, Philip recognized not the muddy shorts and bare feet he’d had as a child, but the muscles and the scars of an adult’s body lining the hands holding up the small creature. The green and white shirt was gone with the old memory, and in its place were a cloak and torn body wraps.

He turned his head to look up at the speaker then, and where his mother had been there was a man standing there looking back at him. Something like his own age, in a white coat and with curly dark hair, glasses, walnut skin. His face was at once deeply familiar and completely foreign, the kind of déjà vu that only ever came with someone in a dream you had never met, but were meant to know. When he looked back down at the kitten, it was gone. He’d known it would be.

“It’s not okay,” said Philip, looking back up at the man. For some reason he couldn’t understand, he felt like crying, and the knowledge that he couldn’t understand why was worse. Empty. Desolate. “I don’t remember you. And when I wake up, I won’t even remember that I have forgotten.”

The man took a knee beside him and let his arms rest across it. “That’s okay too,” he said, smiling in a way that was calming and gentle. Familiar in a way that was just barely out of reach, and for one brief instant Philip thought he did know him, but then the moment was gone, and the man was a stranger again. And somewhere, deep down, Philip knew it; he knew that if there had been other survivors in the Entity’s realm he had once known, that was lost now—well and truly, and no amount of struggling to find time that was gone could bring it back.

“How can you say that?” said Philip, feeling a cool sensation on the side of his face he recognized as tears, but came with no understanding of how or why or even who he was mourning.

“Because you’re still here,” answered the man. He stood then, and turned and faced away from Philip, watching something very far off, wind whipping at his coat. After a moment he glanced back at Philip and smiled, and the expression on this stranger’s face somehow seemed almost fond.

Slowly, Philip stood up beside him, staring into the distance with him. There was nothing out there he could see, just a pale, stormy grey-white emptiness. Still, he watched it in silence for a moment with the man, because it seemed important, and right. “I don’t even get to miss you,” he said after a second, voice sounding strained and thin in his own ears.

In the distance, there was a sound he hadn’t heard in years. Thunder. He waited, but no rain came with it, no lightning; false, like everything here, the empty promise of a storm without any true force behind it. The man didn’t say anything for a second, but Philip thought he looked sad.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” said Philip, almost more to the storm than the man.

“Yes you do,” the man replied, turning his head to look at him this time. “You’re the same person you’ve always been, aren’t you?”

“Am I?” asked Philip, feeling empty.

“You’re Philip Ojomo,” the man replied, turning so he faced him completely.

“I don’t know what that means now,” said Philip hollowly.

“You’ll figure it out,” replied the man, pushing some of his hair out of his face as the wind whipped at it. “I still have hope in you.”

“I can’t.” Philip shook his head. Hope was false, and he didn’t have the strength for it anymore.

“I’m glad you don’t mean that,” said the man, watching him. His expression was almost solemn now, maybe sad. The wind picked up about them and the sky darkened above, bringing with it debris, and as it passed through them the man began to fade into nothing with it. Something was happening. Something was waking him up.

Philip reached out after the stranger to try and keep him there, but as he stretched out his hand the man vanished into the stormy air like he had never been there at all, and as the wind whipped past Philip and the man vanished, so did the faint echo of a memory that had come with him, and Philip was alone again.

 

* * *

 

 

“We should kill him—get rid of him while we have the chance. Two less of them is two less of them, no matter how you’re looking at it.”

“And I’m telling you, not a chance.”

 _Angry._ They were both angry. Both men. Philip’s head ached as it fought its way back up from unconsciousness and he tried to recognize the sounds and put them into context. He felt sick, like vomiting and curling up on his side on the floor, but he couldn’t. He was having a hard time thinking right, an impossible time moving. _Where am I? What…happened?_

“Do you not know what that is? What’s going to happen when it wakes up? You think a couple rolls of gauze tied around its wrists are going to stop it?”

“You’re not killing him—we didn’t go through all the work of patching him up to watch him get murdered in cold blood.”

“You just don’t understand—”

New voices. Three…four people?   _I can’t move. Something’s wrong._ In the back of his head, he knew they were talking about him, but his brain was fuzzy. Everything was disjointed, unreal, painful. _What…?_

“Cold blood? Are you hearing yourself? Have you not seen what these things do? –They hunt! They kill! That’s it, and you’re the prey!”

The second voice again then. Level, cool, hostile undertones. “You weren’t there.”

* * *

 

 

Racing through the woods, Nea tore through underbrush at incredible speed, neck and neck with Quentin. Ahead, they still heard the chainsaw, and with it more screams and shouts. A few yards ahead, Feng broke through a chunk of brittle limbs and slid under a patch of low-hanging trees. The girl was _ungodly_ fast when she had to be.

Nea’s heart thudded in her chest with fear and adrenaline as she and Quentin followed Feng’s path, gaining on her a little, heading straight for the sounds. They were close enough now that Nea could recognize voices, if not words, and she heard what she was sure was Dwight.

Before them the trees were thickening, but for a moment Nea thought she could see something beyond them. Then there was a sound like an animal dying—a horrible shriek that went on and on, shattering the eerie quiet of the night and outdoing even the tenseness of the chainsaw and screams before with its pure, unreal horror. Then suddenly, the sound of the chainsaw died and the air went still, which was somehow worse, and Nea and Quentin looked at each other automatically, neither losing stride. _Fuck, that can’t be good. Fuck, fuck, fuck._

“This way!” called Feng over her shoulder ahead of them, vaulting over a bush and racing out of view as she broke the tree line.

A few yards behind Feng, Nea did her best to keep up, Quentin half a step behind her as they moved single-file to make it through the path Feng had carved. As she jumped the bush herself, Nea could see a dilapidated white farm house and open grassy yard ahead—a place unlike any she’d seen before. She reached the other side barely in time to catch Feng’s shadowy form tearing around the corner of the house up ahead in the darkness, and Nea sped off after her, vaguely aware of the sound of Quentin’s footfalls behind her.

Soles pounding on the soft earth, Nea suddenly felt the bottom drop out of her stomach and she pulled up short as she reached the edge of the house and saw the scene before her.

There were bodies scattered everywhere. She couldn’t even tell how many of them were dead. The Cannibal was laying on his back in a pile of blood, a gaping wound in his chest, chainsaw still beside him. Past him, she could make out a form she thought was Kate trying to sit up. Closer to her was Claudette, drenched in blood and kneeling over something unmoving it took her a second to realize was Dwight. Feng was crouched beside her, saying something, and about a foot away, the Wraith lay still by their feet. There was so much blood. Spattering clothes, and the grass, and a white fence nearby. Everything was soaked in red, like the set of B horror film. Only this was real, and horrible, and she could smell it.

“Holy shit,” she whispered as Quentin kept moving past her, reaching Claudette as Nea hung by the edge of the house, staring at the scene laid out in front of her. She could tell he had called something over to Kate, but she missed it, looking past Quentin as he slid into place beside Dwight for the one person she didn’t see. _Jake—Jake was with Kate. Where is he?_ There was no sign of him. A chill ran down her and she reclaimed her motion, hurrying towards the group around Dwight.

“Where’s Jake?” asked Nea, stopping above the others and glancing at Kate as she heard the older girl suck in a sharp breath as her attempt at movement hurt her. She turned her head away and looked down at Dwight then, and the sick feeling she’d had before shot through her and she was afraid. His eyes were shut, and he wasn’t moving, Improvised bandages stretched around his head and held a padded glove in place at the side of his face, but it wasn’t enough. She could see blood and torn skin and things you shouldn’t be able to see on the outside of a head at the edges of the glove. “Is he—” she added as she stared down at Dwight, not willing to finish. She thought she might vomit. Claudette shook her head, and as Nea looked closer she saw with immense relief that his chest was rising and falling shallowly. As she watched, his breathing slowly became more labored and his eyes fluttered open for a moment, and she saw him squint, like the action was hard, and he was trying his best to concentrate.

“Jake?” he asked her weakly, looking at Feng and Claudette before finding her behind them and focusing on her face. “Is Jake okay?”

“I don’t know,” answered Claudette gently. “I’m gonna look, okay?”

He tried to nod and couldn’t quite do it.

 _What the fuck. What the fuck happened?_ thought Nea in a panic, looking behind her at the carnage.

 “What happened to him?” she half-heard Quentin say, trying to sound calm as he opened his medkit and dug through it.

“Cannibal surprised us and got Dwight in the head with the hammer. Kate in the ribs with the same. Jake in the back with the saw. Then the Wraith killed him. I’m okay,” Claudette answered quietly, rapid-fire and as concisely as she could. “You got him?”

Quentin nodded, and Claudette squeezed Dwight’s hand and stood up.

 “Jake?” called Nea, stepping away from the others. “Jake?” she tried again, louder.

“Over there,” she heard Kate say, voice tense and strained. When she turned to look, Kate was leaning on an elbow and pointing off to Nea’s right a little, into the weeds by the white fence. “Alive,” Kate added, lowering herself back onto her side and closing her eyes.

“Claudette, Kate’s hurt,” Nea called over her shoulder, already running in the direction she had indicated.

“She knows,” Nea heard Kate say in a tired voice behind her.

When she reached the weeds, she saw him, half on his stomach, half on his side, looking back towards the house.

“Jake?” she asked, kneeling beside him. There was blood soaking through the back of his coat and onto the ground around him.

He looked up at her, face a little strained and pale, but otherwise reassuringly normal Jake. “I don’t know if it was the chainsaw or how I fell, but I can’t hear for shit right now,” said Jake tiredly and a little quieter than he probably meant to. “Everyone’s alive?” he asked, straight to the point and exhausted, like he was confirming something he was already 98% certain of.

Nea nodded.

Jake laid his head down on the grass and she heard a muffled “Get Quentin and Claudette to look at Dwight first, then make sure someone keeps the Wraith from bleeding out. I’ll be fine,” from the weeds.

 _…The…The Wraith?_ She didn’t really have time to unpack that at the moment, so she focused on what she knew to do. “He’s over here,” Nea called back to the others, feeling immense relief wash over her. “His back’s a little cut up, but he doesn’t look too bad,” she added, turning back to Jake.

In a second, Claudette was beside her.

“None of that is yours, right?” Nea asked, taking in the copious amount of blood on her friend’s face and soaked into her hair and clothing.

“No,” Claudette replied, glancing down at her hands, “But I really shouldn’t be sowing people up like this. Do you—?”

It only took Nea a second to know what she meant, and quickly she pulled her flannel off and tossed it to Claudette, suddenly feeling a little cold in the chilly night air as Claudette tried her best to get the blood off at least her forearms while she looked down at Jake and assessed his situation.

“He, uh,” Nea remembered, watching Claudette, “Said for me to tell you and Quentin to help Dwight first and then the…Wraith?”

“Jake, shut up,” Claudette replied, gently folding up the base of her friend’s jacket and shirt to get a better look at the cut the chainsaw had made.

“He also probably can’t hear you,” Nea added.

“I can hear her,” Jake said from the grass, not opening his eyes “She told me to shut up.”

“Kate, will you be okay for a minute?” Claudette called over her shoulder in a voice that was fighting to sound controlled.

A few feet away, Nea saw Kate’s hand raise above her body in a thumbs-up, and then drop again.

“You’re lucky,” Claudette said, eyes scanning the wound. “Your coat took a lot of that for you, and he didn’t cut through any tendon or bone. This can be badly patched with some suturing until we get back to camp, and you should be able to walk.”

“Nea can do that,” Jake replied, opening his eyes and turning his head so he could see them, “Go help somebody more wounded.”

 _The fuck I can,_ Nea thought to herself, _This shit isn’t acting like a trial injury. I’m not some back-alley doctor, I’ll get you killed trying to operate in the dark in someone’s yard._

“Jake,” Claudette said, her composure breaking for a second and her voice cracking. She hesitated, glancing at Nea like she didn’t want to say this in front of her.

Nea tried to give her a look that was both concerned and reassuring, but she couldn’t tell if she had been successful because Claudette just sort of looked apologetic, or maybe sad in response.

“This isn’t like normal,” Claudette continued, turning her attention back to Jake, “I don’t—I’m not a real doctor. I know you guys joke about it, but you’re wrong. I don’t know what I’m doing, and Dwight’s,” all that came out was a choked-up sound, and Nea saw her bite her lip, trying to calm down. “I don’t know if Kate’s ribs are broken, or if she’s bleeding internally. Or if I messed up and the Wraith’s already dead. I said you don’t have any tendons that got cut, but that’s just what it looks like to me, maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know, Jake, I can’t do this. Please—I’m scared.” She said it quietly, so that no one else would overhear the panic, and she looked ashamed and heartbroken and terrified all at the same time.

“Yes, you can,” said Jake, voice still level. “Nobody’s gonna die. You’re good at this; Quentin’s good at this. Stabilize the Wraith, make sure Dwight’s not getting any worse. The rest of us will be okay for a minute. Trust me.”

Claudette nodded and cleared her throat before turning to look at Nea, trying to erase the emotion from it. “You…uhm…Do you think you can…?”

“Yeah,” said Nea, no idea if she could, but determined not to make things harder on Claudette by saying that out loud. “I got this. I’ll get thread and a needle from Quentin.”

Nodding, Claudette turned away from her and called over to the group by Dwight. “Feng?” Nea looked too, and saw that Feng was still beside Quentin, helping him with something, but she looked up when she heard her name. “Can you help Kate?” asked Claudette. Feng nodded wordlessly, looking about as daunted by that as Nea felt, and quickly stood up.

“Jake,” said Claudette, looking back down at him, “You’re really okay?”

“Go, I’m fine,” said Jake, moving an arm to wave her off.

“I’ll be right back,” said Nea, standing up with Claudette and hurrying to join Quentin.

“We need a needle and thread for Nea,” said Claudette, kneeling beside Dwight again. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s holding together,” said Quentin. Dwight’s eyes were closed again, but Nea could tell without the few seconds of panicked insecurity first that he was still breathing. “Jake?” he asked, passing Nea her supplies.

“Bigass gash,” said Nea, standing. “But he’s tough.”

She turned to go and paused, looking down at the bodies on the ground. The gaping hole in the Cannibal’s chest, the blood covered sickle laying a few inches from the Wraith’s still form.

“Is he alive?” Nea asked quietly, eyes on what she could see of the Wraith’s still face.

“Yeah,” said Claudette, following her gaze. “Look, he’s still breathing.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you have to go?”

Philip sighed and set his suitcase down on the ground beside the door. It was early morning, nearly four, but the moon was full and bright, and it was peaceful outside. Not dark.

“You should be in bed,” said Philip, turning to face the child behind him. His niece, barely seven years old, was standing in the doorway in her pajamas, watching him unhappily, holding to a stuffed creature which he had bought for her when she turned three, but had never been able to tell for sure if was a dog or a bear.

“But you’re leaving,” she said, holding the toy to her chest.

“Yes,” said Philip, taking a knee to be closer to her level. “But we said goodbye, last night.”

“I don’t want you to go,” she said, staying in the shadow of the hallway doorframe, hoping it would force him to walk back further into the house to converse.

“Daima, we all have to go sometime,” replied Philip gently.

“But why?” she asked, giving in and taking a couple steps closer because he wouldn’t. “You don’t have to go to America. You could stay.”

“It’s a better future,” said Philip, gently tapping her forehead with a finger, “It will be for all of us. Once I make enough money, I can send for you all to come too.”

“I don’t want to go,” argued Daima, “I want to stay here. America is scary.”

Philip nodded thoughtfully. He would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a little the same way. But even though the war was over now, things weren’t safe here for people like them anymore. Even if a new country was scary, it was also hope. It was somewhere with the promise of better things—of money, and freedom, and safety.

“It is scary,” said Philip out loud. “I don’t want to go either, but I have to.”

“Why?” asked Daima stubbornly. Always more likely to pout and argue than to cry. A tough little girl.

“A new beginning,” said Philip, smiling a little at the thought despite the fear in his chest he hadn’t let on to around anyone. _Somewhere you will make it. At least all the way to as old as I am now._

“What’s wrong with the one you have?” asked Daima, reaching out for his hand and trying one last time to win him back.

 _Wrong?_ It was a funny question. Nothing, and everything. He loved this country. He loved the trees, and the winds, the river. The look of buildings, and the ceremonies his Grandmother had taught him, the taste of the language on his tongue. He was not an old man. Philip was young, only in his twenties. And yet, he had lost more of the things he loved by the time he reached Daima’s age than he hoped she ever would. He had been born into decolonization, and seen people hope. He had been a boy when that hope was lost to half-finished systems of government that could not agree and succumbed to old wounds. He had seen hope in his mother at new freedoms, because their people’s way over governing had always been to come together, and as a youth been old enough to lose that hope himself along with her to a war over race and sectors of land, but first over oil. And now, as a man, he was not going to watch it happen again. Too many people were dead. Too many things broken. He saw people with hope, and he saw the signs of things preparing to fall apart again. Criminals, colonizers, governments, neighbors. There was nowhere to turn to and be safe. He had been struck down one too many times. There was no longer a way to trust the future promised him by this life. No. This time, he was going to find that hope himself. If that meant leaving, leaving family, leaving home, leaving the old ways, he would do it. Enough had been lost. It was time to gain something. _A new country. A new start._

“It isn’t safe here,” said Philip, reaching out and messing up Daima’s thick, curly hair as he ruffled it. “We deserve something better.” He stood then, and picked up his little suitcase. It held a suit to help him get a job, a little money, some photographs and a few things to remind him of home, given to him by his family last night. Only what he could carry. “You’ll see,” he added, turning back to Daima, “Someday you’ll be glad.”

She looked at him, like she was looking into his soul in the way that only children can do, and she shook her head. “No. We’ll both be sad.”

“Don’t curse me with that as I walk out the door,” said Philip playfully, trying to bring up her mood. “Wish me luck.”

She nodded solemnly, like a priestess handing out powerful magic, and she held out her hand again. He reached down and took it this time, and she placed her palm against his, staring at how much bigger it was thoughtfully. “Good luck,” she said, looking up at him with big eyes the color of rich soil, almost black, and even more full of life. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” he said, and he bent over and kissed her on the forehead.  

He had left then. Turned and walked through the door, down old streets he knew well, bathed in moonlight, breathing in air he knew better, with the taste of rain in it, and he had never gone back.

Looking forward, looking for a better life.

In America, he had had hope. Relief at getting a job—any job, by the time he did. And he had survived. On beer, and television, and work he understood, and cheap food, and hope. But after four and a half years of searching, it was not a better future that had found him.

 

* * *

 

Claudette watched in petrified horror as the Wraith went still on the ground before her.

More had happened in the span of sixty seconds than she could process, and as the night filled up with nothing but a sudden, unnatural silence and the sound of the wind, a calm in a place that should never have been calm, she watched as blood began to slowly creep through the grass and pool beneath the person who had just saved her life.

“No,” she said, almost a whisper, and then she was moving. Fast—faster than she knew, slipping on the ground that was slick with blood and stumbling to her knees beside him. “No! No, you can’t die!” she said, moving him onto his back and staring down in horror at the blood coating his chest. She realized suddenly that her arms and legs were drenched in blood, and for a second she had the sickening belief that it was his, and then she remembered the Cannibal, and became aware of the cool stickiness of another human’s blood on her face and neck as well. _Maybe it’s not all his,_ she thought, looking down at his blood-soaked cloak and trying to get her thudding heart to believe what her mind was clinging to too.

“Don’t die,” she said under her breath, trying to get a good look at his wound through the carnage. It was so overwhelmingly daunting, trying to find where spatter ended and injury began, her own hands slick with blood making everything that much harder. She felt like sobbing. He was breathing still; she could feel his chest rise and fall beneath her hands, but the dressing she’d worked so hard on was soaked through and falling apart.

“Please,” she whispered, trying to readjust what was salvageable of the bandages, “You can’t die. It isn’t fair.”

His head tilted a little and she saw him open his eyes for a moment. Just slits, barely even a second and a half, but he looked at her, and beneath her hands she felt his heartrate speed up, and then his eyes closed again, and he was dead to the world.

“Is he okay?”

The voice was weak and strained, and she recognized it instantly as Dwight’s.

_Dwight! Shit-shit, what am I doing?_

“He’s alive,” she said, hurrying to her feet and back over to where Dwight lay watching her, barely more conscious than the Wraith was.

“That’s good,” he said as she came to a stop beside him.

She had seen him take the hit—seen the sledge connect to the side of his head, seen him fall, but she hadn’t had a second to breathe since then. Only now did she see someone had hastily bandaged the wound, slowing the bleeding, but making it difficult for her to tell the level of damage. “Did…” she had to pause to let her overworked mind find the person she was looking for, “Did Jake do this?” she asked, carefully kneeling beside Dwight and moving parts of the bandage as gingerly as possible to better see the wound.

“Yeah,” said Dwight, “He…” his face was pale and drawn, and he looked like he was having a hard time focusing. “He…” Dwight tried again, fighting to remember what he had been going to say, “…Is he okay? Is Jake okay?” he asked, sounding scared.

“I don’t know,” she replied softly, trying to stroke some of the hair matted with blood away without hurting him so she could get a better look at his injury, “I’m gonna go look in a second, okay?”

He had looked worried when she said she didn’t know, but her second answer seemed to calm him down a little.

As she finally got a good look at the wound in the side of his head, Claudette felt a sickening feeling seep into her chest and spread. “Dwight, can you move at all?” she asked, voice steady and reassuring.

“I’m…” he trailed off, looking confused and disoriented, and she saw him try to focus, and he stared past her for a second, a look of intense effort spreading over his face as he tried. His hand twitched, and then nothing. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice quiet, sounding worlds more exhausted than before. “I can’t help…I’m…” his eyes started to close, and she saw him try and fight it. It suddenly hit her that she didn’t know if she should tell him to do it—to resist the urge to go under, or to let it happen and rest, and somehow that one small piece of uncertainty made her feel broken inside and utterly lost.

“It’s okay,” she said softly, gently readjusting Jake’s bandages around Dwight’s head, moving more gingerly than she ever had before. Somewhere off to her left she heard a faint shout. A woman’s voice. “Just hang in there, okay?” she continued, “I’m going to fix you up.”

He believed her, and closed his eyes. As his breathing leveled out, Claudette sat above him, overcome with anxiety and worry and uncertainty, listening to the pounding of approaching footsteps.

 

* * *

 

 

“You think it’s your friend because it killed something else first? It went after the biggest threat—that doesn’t mean it wasn’t gonna kill you second!”

 _I…am the ’it,’_ thought Philip slowly as the argument became clearer in his head, _I am the thing they are afraid will kill them. Why? Do I do that?_

“He was protecting us!” Another voice. A girl.

 _Did I? Do I do that? _As the haze in his head grew thicker, and in a detached way that was only made possible by the mixture of pain and confusion and sleep that overwhelmed him, Philip wondered who was right. If they would be smarter to kill him, or to let him go.

“Look, I didn’t see it, you didn’t see it, but they all did. We should at least try to talk to it—him—whatever. I mean, he’s pretty fucked up. What’s he gonna do to us on death’s door? “Another voice he had perhaps heard a few times, but didn’t really know.

“Didn’t he just eviscerate a man while on death’s door?” A woman this time, calmer sounding than the others, but wary.

“Exactly!” came the first voice again, “If you don’t kill it when you have the chance, you’ll regret it.”

“You aren’t killing him,” came the second voice, firm and tense. “You think we’re being stupid, but you’re the one who wants to choose poorly. We need him. We need him to talk.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Always seems to end up like this, huh?” asked Quentin, wiping his brow with a forearm.

He and Claudette were bent over the Wraith, doing their best as a team to stop the bleeding and get him stable.

“Does it?” asked Claudette, doing her best to match his light tone and only half succeeding. “I don’t remember this much fear about killing somebody on accident. That just me?”

“No, you’re right,” replied Quentin. “This is like the excruciating difficulty version of normal. Can you keep pressure here?”

“Mmmhmm. You have any hemostatic gauze?” asked Claudette, holding out her left hand and using her right to keep pressure on part of the Wraith’s chest wound.

“Yeah. I have a styptic pencil, one injectable, and some hemostatic gauze,” he said, passing her all three.

“Thanks,” said Claudette, moving to inject the Wraith. Quentin watched her, curious himself to see how well it worked under more normal circumstances. It wasn’t like inside a trial, where one of these things was almost like downing a healing potion in a video game, but it helped just the same, and he saw relief wash over Claudette as the bleeding slowed. “You brought the good stuff,” she added, smiling at him.

 _This is surreal,_ thought Quentin, picking up a little bottle of antiseptic. _I’ve treated so many injuries since I got here, but it’s never been real before, has it? I think it can’t be quite real now. At least if my memories of real life are still reliable at all, but…I wonder if this is what it feels like, to do this for real? Or close to it. I wonder if after several thousand times sewing up wounds and jamming people with meds if I’d actually be any good at the real thing?_

He glanced over at Claudette, who was carefully binding the Wraith’s chest with the hemostatic, a look of concentrated focus on her face. _You’re good at this._ She was fast—always improving, always coming up with new ways to use things around her. People depended on that, and she didn’t let them down.

“Hey,” asked Quentin, cleaning the edge of the Wraith’s exit wound and taking a chunk of the roll of hemostatic gauze himself. “Once we get out of here, want to go into the medical profession together?”

“I want to open a nursery,” said Claudette, stealing a glance away from her work and over at him, smiling in spite of the panicked undercurrent that had been pulling at them all since they first heard the chainsaw. “But if horticulture doesn’t work out, I’ll consider med school as a viable second option. Don’t think I’d be much good at it, though,” she added, “I can’t handle blood.”

That almost got him to laugh, because she was positively drenched in it, and Quentin smiled, feeling a little better himself.

“Hey,” she said after a second, the light expression that had been there a moment ago all but gone, “About Dwight.”

“Yeah,” said Quentin, exhaling slowly. Being hit in the head by that thing in trials had always been excruciating and disorienting, but seeing it do something more like the damage you could really expect from a sledgehammer hitting someone’s skull? “He’s disoriented and has a hard time staying awake, but he’s easy to wake up initially, and he doesn’t have trouble talking,” offered Quentin, almost as much for himself as Claudette. “It’ll be okay,” he added, wishing he actually knew enough about head injuries to believe that completely. “Even outside of trials, we seem to heal faster than usual out here.” That, at least, was true. He’d expected to have an eye almost swollen shut for a week after Laurie beat the shit out of him, but it had only been really bad for a couple days, then a shiner for maybe a week.

 _God, please be true,_ he thought, glancing over the few feet to where Dwight lay, eyes shut, breathing a little shallow.

 

* * *

 

The voices he had been hearing gradually faded into nothing and Philip lost the little grip on consciousness that he’d had.

Everything was lost, hazy. Everything hurt. Slowly, he almost forgot about the words he had heard, and when he woke up, it wasn’t to the sound of anything. It was to the feeling of pain in his chest.

The sounds came second, garbled, slowed, fogged down. Faint, beyond the sharp ache between his ribs. Instinct took over and recognized the pain as a threat, and tried to wake him. It took a second to struggle through the weight in his head pressing unconsciousness down on him and holding him in place, but finally Philip opened his eyes.

It was lighter than he was used to, and it took him a second to focus and realize he was looking down at his own legs. He tried to move, then, and realized he couldn’t. There was something rough, like bark, at his back, and his arms were held in place behind it. _What? Why am…_

He forced his stiff neck up weakly, trying to look around, and became aware that the sounds he’d only been registering vaguely before were voices.

“Look—even if it knows anything, it’s not gonna tell you. It’ll break free and start snapping necks.”

Philip’s own neck was sore, and it hurt to move it. He was initially only really aware of feet ahead of him, pacing a few feet off, but as he turned his head to look he saw many people. Some sitting, some standing—sort of a blurry circle he was a part of. Beyond them a bit was a large campfire he had seen before, from a distance. There were a lot of people here—a few of them were moving, but most were still, watching the others. One of them was sitting on the ground a few feet to his right, resting their hand on their chin and looking vaguely annoyed.

The figure felt Philip’s gaze on him and turned to look, and recognition flashed through Philip. He knew this boy—he’d seen him before. _In trials. He eats hooks—breaks, he breaks hooks,_ Philip corrected himself mentally.

As soon as the boy looked at him and saw he was awake, he stole a glance over towards the others, then looked back at Philip and made a quick gesture with folded hands like he was feigning being asleep.

 _What? Oh,_ thought Philip, _Go back to sleep._ He only had an instant to think it over, but he was confused and disoriented, and in an a lot of pain, and in the little time he had been awake he had heard someone mention snapping necks, so he took the advice and closed his eyes and let his head rest against his chest again.

He needed time. To think, to wake up completely, to figure out what was going on. But he didn’t get it. Philip had been quick, but not quite fast enough.

“Hey,” came one of the voices from the circle, “He’s awake.”

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s okay,” said Kate in a reassuring voice. “I’ve broken ribs before. It’ll heal on its own, and if I’d punctured somethin’ I’d be coughin’ up blood by now, so I’ll be alright.”

“Should I bandage it—like you splint a wrist?” asked Feng, helping steady Kate in a sitting position.

“Nah—don’t want to stop me from bein’ able to breathe right. I just need to take it easy and not be too still for too long. Can you help me up, though?” asked Kate, grimacing and gingerly holding a hand to her ribs.

“Yeah, of course,” said Feng, shifting and pulling one of Kate’s arms over her shoulder, reaching around her back, and supporting her beneath her other arm as well so they were side-by-side. “You’re okay to get up?”

“Yeah, should be,” replied Kate, letting out a slow breath. “On three?”

Feng nodded. “One, two,” she started to lift, leveraging her leg strength to lift Kate, “Three.”

They made it up pretty easily, Kate breathing a bit heavily, and Feng relaxed her grip. “Hang on, I’ll go find you something to use as a walking stick,” said Feng, gently letting go of Kate.

“Thanks,” said Kate, trying to steady herself on her own.

Feng turned and headed the way she’d come. The spear she’d gotten from Jake was probably about the right length, and she remembered dropping it when she had gotten to Claudette, so it was probably still over by Dwight.

 _Broken ribs,_ thought Feng, glancing at Quentin and Claudette as she passed. They were both bent over the Wraith, trying to keep him alive, but staying close to Dwight and pausing to check on him intermittently. _Broken head._ She looked over to where Jake was bent over on his knees, shirtless in the cold as Nea sewed up his back. _Broken back._

She didn’t feel good. She felt sick, and cold, and like crying. A few minutes ago, she had been joking around about how everyone would be fine, and wondering if it was wrong that she didn’t feel anything. Well, she felt a lot now, and half of it was guilt, because she almost believed her lack of concern had caused this.

Bending down, Feng took the sharpened branch and picked it up, then she glanced over her shoulder at the Wraith. When Jake had given her this, she’d half expected to be trying to run the thing through with it in an hour, and now people were trying to save him. _Does this mean he’s part of the team now?_ she wondered. None of them had taken the time to ask what had happened in any more detail than Claudette originally gave, but they had accepted the way the other four were acting without question. After all, they’d been here. Plus, Jake wanted the Wraith taken care of too—and Jake was pretty far from generous and forgiving. If he wanted the Wraith, that meant there was a solidly good reason.

Feng reached Kate and passed her the spear, which Kate accepted with a grateful smile, then flipped upside-down and leaned on the dull end of.

“Dwight doin’ okay?” asked Kate, looking over to where he lay a few feet off.

“I don’t know,” said Feng. She was suddenly bowled over by the almost overpowering urge to cry, and she fought it down with all her might, but she knew some of it must have showed on her face, because Kate gave her a funny look. “I thought he’d be okay,” Feng managed, voice husky.

“Well, let’s see what we can’t do to help,” said Kate, wrapping her fingers around Feng’s and squeezing them quickly before letting go.

“Yeah,” said Feng, turning back towards Dwight.

 

* * *

 

 

Philip had always been good at English.

Languages in general seemed to come easy to him, and he knew how to work hard and learn fast. Despite this, though, speaking it often made him uncomfortable. He knew he was using the right words and correct meanings, fairly sure in the order and version, but often people would still look at him oddly—like he had done something wrong, and cornered by the fear of never knowing for sure if they were right and he was mistaken, the second language carried with it a low undercurrent of anxiety.

It wasn’t so bad in the tiny apartment where he lived at first, or the dingy two-flat he moved to later. Everyone in those places was from somewhere else. Sure, most of them weren’t from Nigeria like him, but they shared this new home and way of speaking as a second one, and that was an equalizer.

The same problem wasn’t such a big one at work. At his job, Azarov would pass on orders, and Philip would do them, and that was about it. Most of the workers were migrant, like him, and the other ones didn’t really care. The little discussion was easy—about sports, or television, work and the weather. There was a rhythm to it, like the mindless rhythm of crushing cars: easy, learnable, reassuring.

There were only a few places his self-consciousness about his way of speaking presented issues for him. Stores, where clerks were always a little suspicious. Public buildings, when he had to appear to get papers for a car, or a home, or staying in the country, where the people talking with him always made him feel about sixteen years younger than he was. And then there were public streets, where in truth people rarely said anything to him at all, but still always carried the vague Russian-roulette possibility of having something go wrong, with so many people on them.

Still, as the years went from one to four, Philip became a little less nervous. It wasn’t so much an improved skill as it was a desensitization to the reactions he received, confidence through practical use. Either way, he was glad that the difficulty waned, but just the same, the fear never really left him.

Though he hadn’t fought, he had lived through war before. Crime, and danger. It was different here, but many things were the same. You had to learn the rules, learn what to avoid, where to avoid, when to disappear. You couldn’t get arrested, because once you did, you would never get back out. Head down, straight line, follow the rules. Just work, go home. Milwaukee was to be avoided at all costs. He had once heard a man stopping at the gas station ask about where he lived, and then joke that the 16th street bridge in the city separated Africa from Europe. Philip had said nothing and done his job. That was often the right decision here.  But he remembered, and he avoided places conversations flagged for him, drawing maps in his head of where he could and could not safely pass.

It was 1981, and people spoke of all the changes. There was new music, new cinema. _Star Wars,_ and _MASH, The Rockford Files,_ and new rock—hard, and alternative, and progressive. Queen. New cities, new buildings, new highways. Newer and better and faster cars, everyone racing—racing to find something, to find promises of money and technology and change and a golden future, a dream. But it had taken Philip much less time than those four years to realize that things were not as simple as he had been promised. His belief in a better future had been the same mistake he had made and seen countless others make again and again his whole life: the promise of false hope.

 _But that is okay,_ he told himself, making instant oatmeal with water in a bright and ugly plastic bowl in his cold kitchen with its chipped linoleum floor, _I made it. I have a roof, I have a job, I have some money I can save and still eat, and no one has tried to shoot me yet. If I just keep going, I’ll get there._ He didn’t know where _there_ was, but it felt calming to hold to it. It meant alive, and okay, and maybe other things too after living long enough. Maybe there just wasn’t a way to get any more than that out of life at all, and that had to be enough.

There was snow here, and snow was new, and interesting. Half-tame animals wandering the streets you could toss food too and sometimes pat on the head as you passed, and that was familiar and comforting. Everything was manageable. _I’ll be okay,_ Philip told himself, swallowing a spoonful of the thick, vaguely tasteless, vaguely sweet, sticky oatmeal. He walked into the living area of his side of the minuscule two-flat he had been sharing with a large family until a few weeks ago when they had been evicted. It had happened before, and would again, he was sure. The only unusual thing was that it had taken this long for someone new to rent the vacant space. Philip picked his coat up off the back of his chair and pulled it on over his broad shoulders and zipped it up against the icy air waiting outside, then tugged a thick, worn blue scarf out of one of the deep pockets and tied it around his throat. _I just have to keep going,_ he thought, pausing at the screen door, looking through the glass window at the street outside.

_Keep surviving._

 

* * *

 

“Nea,” said Jake, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. She was kneeling behind him as he sat crouched with his shirt off in the cold forest air so she could easily get to the chainsaw wound on his back, needle and thread in hand, hesitating “Please tell me I don’t have to talk you through this, because all you have to do is stitch up my back, and I have had a _fucking_ day of it.”

“Like, damn, bitch, okay,” said Nea defensively. “I’m going—Sorry I’m not speed-stitching; I’m just trying not to hurt you.”

 _I’m so tired,_ thought Jake, tugging his belt free from his pants and biting down on it in preparation for the pain to come. “Just do it,” he said through the belt.

He heard her take a breath so deep it was audible, even with his hearing still a little rough, and then she did. The needle went into the ragged skin in his back, and he sucked in a sharp breath, fighting down the urge to jerk away or make noise. _Tune it out,_ he told himself.

The needle went in and out of his skin slowly, stabbing and then tearing as she drew pieces together with the medical thread. He forced himself to attune to the rhythm, using the familiarity of the motion to wade through it, work past it. Jake had always had a knack for that, and he was damn glad of it now. Endurance was probably his strongest trait.

Jake had been wounded before, and even if this was definitely not following the rules he could generally expect from injuries obtained in a trial, he had a pretty decent idea of how much he could take. This one wasn’t so bad. It hurt like hell, but he could move fine, and it didn’t seem to causing him any trouble using his limbs. He had actually been more concerned over his hearing, but that was slowly but surely clearing up. The more pressing matter was what to do next. He had to get everyone back to camp, and fast, but what after that? Dwight was in something a lot worse than ‘rough shape,’ and they would have the Wraith to deal with.

 _Fuck. The Wraith._ That was its own issue. Meg had told him about their little group’s plan to befriend the killer and thought it was foolhardy, but not surprising, considering it was Claudette’s idea. He hadn’t even remotely considered that it might work. But what he’d seen? Just now? Laying in the weeds, head spinning from hitting the ground wrong, watching two of his friends about to die. The thing had moved lightning fast, and it had protected them. It hadn’t been fighting the Cannibal, or attacking an enemy—it had been protecting, clean and simple. There was no way to deny that. Its first move had been to put itself between them and danger—then move Claudette. Everything it had done had been tactical—purposeful, and that definitely included its opening move. He couldn’t go back to ignoring the things they had pointed out as reasons to try with the Wraith, because now he knew they were right. Besides, he didn’t really want to. It had saved all of them, so they owed it.

“Done,” said Nea, letting out a breath she’d been holding and sitting down beside him, passing him his shirt and coat. “It passable?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” said Jack, rotating his torso to test it. It seemed like it would hold up. “What’s the damage?”

“Well,” said Nea, looking back over at the others, “Dwight’s alive. Kate’s on her feet. All three of us are fine, and so’s Claudette, and it looks like the Wraith isn’t dead yet either.”

That was actually better than he’d hoped for, and he internally let out a sigh of relief. “Okay,” said Jake, pulling his shirt on and standing, ignoring the pain that rippled through his back as he did so. “Let’s get people moving as fast as we can.”

Nea had worked fast, so it took a few minutes for Claudette and Quentin to get the Wraith stable enough for them to want to move him. After a little arguing, Jake successfully convinced the others that Kate carrying _anyone_ with broken ribs was a terrible idea, and that the rest of them should rotate out carrying the Wraith and Dwight, three people at a time on the Wraith, a fourth with Dwight, and the last one getting a brief rest. Claudette argued with him for a good four minutes about carrying anyone himself with his back fucked up, but eventually he wore her down by pulling off his shirt so she could see the sutures and holding Nea up over his head so he could prove both that he could do it an that the stitches would hold up, after which she rather angrily gave up arguing with him.

When they set out, Quentin, Feng, and Nea took the Wraith, Jake carried Dwight, and Claudette walked with Kate, doing her best to help her and move obstacles ahead out of the way as they dug through forest underbrush which hadn’t really been an issue for them before, but was a pretty big one now that they were transporting bodies.

He’d wrapped Dwight up in bis coat before heading out, hoping it would defend him a little from the cold, but looking down at the unconscious friend he was doing his best to carry gently, Jake was worried. Dwight was breathing steadily, but he looked like shit. Pale, sweaty, cold. When Quentin had gotten an eye swollen shut outside of trials by Laurie, it had taken a few days to downgrade to a black eye, maybe a week to heal. Even at an accelerated rate like that, if he could expect the same for Dwight, how the fuck was he supposed to survive even one trial like this in the meantime? They’d gotten lucky so far—no one had suddenly vanished while trying to carry bodies, but it was only a matter of time. He was going to get butchered. For who knew how many trials in a row. Jake was refusing to consider the option things wouldn’t improve eventually, but even with that kind of worry aside, right now Dwight couldn’t even move on his own.

 _You really like to cause problems for me, huh?_ He looked down at Dwight’s drawn features, his shallow breathing. Shirtless under a coat too big for him, Dwight looked smaller than he was. _Damn it. It had to be you._

In Jake’s arms, Dwight shifted his head a little and made a faintly pained sound. Almost a whimper. _Fuck. Hang in there, we’re almost back._

He’d think of something. He had to.

 

* * *

 

 

“You sure?” said a voice Philip didn’t recognize. He kept his eyes shut, but there was suddenly the sound of a lot of people moving at once.

“See—he’s breathing differently. And his eyes were open a second ago,” came the reply.

_Shit._

“You waited too long,” came the first man again. “Do it now, while you still have a chance!”

“No!” snapped a woman’s voice, “Just—stay there. Okay?”

There was no speaking for a second, just the sound of movement, and then he heard another woman say, “Be careful.”

There were footsteps close to him, coming closer.

Philip wondered for a second if he should keep playing dead and hope they gave up, but he remembered enough about what had happened now to have a pretty good idea of where he was. The souls—the people he hunted. Four of them had tried to convince him he knew them, and then he’d been stupid—he’d listened, and gotten himself injured. Philip could still remember the surprise and pain tearing through him, and looking down to see the Entity’s claw through his chest. He’d passed out then, in the basement, at the mercy of the two who were left. They hadn’t killed him, though—they had tried for some reason to fix him, and to take him with them. He’d woken up in the grass with bandages around his chest to see them fighting something else—another of the hunters working for the Iska, and Philip had seen that they were going to die, and killed the other reaper to save them. _Why did you do that?_ Philip asked himself, the memories of the battle still strong. _You will definitely be in trouble with the Iska, and that is if these people don’t kill you first._ Why had he done it? Philip wasn’t sure. In that moment, it hand just been…it had seemed so definitely the right thing to do. They had been trying so hard to protect each other from something so impossible to fight, and it had been brave, and he hadn’t wanted to see them die. _You are stupidly impulsive to the core,_ he told himself, hoping that maybe his actions would be enough to convince them he didn’t intend them any harm and keep him alive now. Unfortunately, he was also aware suddenly that there were many more of them than the four he had helped—the four who claimed to know him—that they were all supposed to be the worst kind of people, and that the rest of them hated him, and it occurred to him that if he kept pretending to be out they were likely to hit him to wake him up.

 _There’s no helping it. I will have to figure out what to do as I go._ Resigned to the situation as best as he could be, Philip slowly opened his eyes.

There were so many of them. At least twelve, circled around him, a variety of emotions on their faces. Not all hostile, almost none friendly. Mostly, they looked cautions—wary. Several of them were holding sharpened stakes of some length, like spears. The closest one to him by several feet was a girl—unarmed, and one of the four from the basement and the yard. He had been told her name. _Claudette Morel,_ he remembered, thinking of the scar on his hand he couldn’t see. He tried to move and look around to get some kind of bearings, and realized that he couldn’t make it more than a few inches to the right or left or stand, because his arms were securely bound behind him around a tree he had his back to, pinning him there. He was a tall man, but held down like this everyone was above him and he had to look up at the girl, and as he did, she crouched to be at his level.

“Hey,” she said softly, as if she were trying to calm down a wild animal. She put her hands out in front of her, palm up. “It’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you. Nobody is. Are you alright?”

 _What?_ He was confused, but more than that, Philip was scared. He hadn’t realized it until she had promised safety, but the slight lowering of the fear he felt made him realize its presence, and the strength of it. Bound and injured and weak, weaponless, and vastly outnumbered, Philip was very aware of how the armed people around him probably felt about him. The more time passed, the more clearly he remembered things he had only been half awake to hear them say. Much of it had been about killing him. _Shit,_ thought Philip, looking back up at the girl, swallowing, _I’m supposed to say something back._

The girl was speaking English, and it had been a long time since he’d done that. The only language he’s used since he’d come here was his own—and that had to be what? Eight years? He had understood everything she said, but he was afraid to try and answer—afraid after all this time he would mess it up, and under pressure from the people staring him down and the fear of making things worse by saying the wrong thing, his old anxiety ate at him and he said nothing.

“We did our best,” she said, motioning to the bandages covering his chest, “Me and Quentin,” she added, gesturing to a boy in the group behind her with curly dark hair who was watching him with cautious interest. “You should be okay.”

Again, Philip said nothing, doubts seeping into his chest as he tried to think what he even would say in response to this. _What happened? How did I get here? Why did you take me? Why heal me? What do you want? What do you plan to do?_ He looked past her to the spectators behind, trying to figure out something from their expressions. Tense, curious, cautious. One of them was staring him down, taught like a bowstring, waiting for an excuse. A newer human here—the police officer. His hand was wrapped around one of the spears.

“I’m sorry we had to tie you up,” Claudette continued, and he looked away from the crowd and back at her. “We weren’t sure what you’d remember, or do, when you woke up.”

She paused again, waiting for him to say something, and Philip balked, unsure and self-conscious and at a loss. _This is not going well—do something. At least say something to show them you don’t want to fight. Please._

“It’s not going to talk to you,” said the policeman, voice tense.

“Hey,” cut in the boy who’d told him to pretend to still be asleep, turning to face the cop, “Let her try.”

“It’s not gonna talk,” said the policeman again, “You won’t get anything out of it.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t speak English,” argued the boy, his own posture tensing as he kept his eyes focused on the policeman. “Dwight heard him talk before, in a different language.”

“We have a couple other things we can try,” the girl in front of him added, glancing over her shoulder at some of the others, then turning back to Philip. “Parlez vous Francais?”

“Talar du Svenska?” offered one of the other girls behind her.

 _Shit, shit—what am I supposed to do here? If I answer…I—What do they want from me?_ One of them had said they needed to keep him alive for information, and he remembered that clearly now, but Philip didn’t really know anything. Not anything he could think of that they would want to know, anyway. What would happen when they figured that out? Trying to think, he didn’t say anything, and he saw Claudette’s face fall. Behind her, the policeman shifted, his posture stiffening. _I’m making this worse._

“Do you understand me?” asked Claudette in English again, looking back at Philip with dying hope in her expression. “At all?”

 _Shit, she’s going to give up. I should just—_ Philip nodded once, and he saw a look of relief and happiness spread across her face instantly.

“Do you speak any?” she asked hopefully.

Philip swallowed. Behind her he saw the cop watching him. Looking back at the girl, he nodded again.

“Good! –Then, uh,” she said, looking excited and stumbling over herself trying to figure out what to say next. “Will—can you talk to us?”

 _I guess I don’t have much of a choice,_ thought Philip miserably _._ It was harder to make himself do than he’d expected, and it slowly dawned on him that aside from the Entity, he hadn’t spoken to anyone at all in years, and talks with the Iska were infrequent and odd. It had been a long time since he’d really had any form of human contact at all, and he wasn’t sure he remembered the correct way to do it in the first place, not just in a second language. He took a slow breath, thinking much longer and harder than he needed to over which way to say what he wanted, eventually going for the simplest out of fifteen combinations that came to mind in the hopes it would be the least likely for him to get wrong. “I do not want to hurt you,” said Philip finally in English, very slowly, trying to remember how to sound reassuring and calm.

His voice sounded strange to him—wrong, but her face lit up. Past her there was a wave of reactions throughout the others—mostly surprise.

“I didn’t think you did,” she said, smiling at him, her happiness almost overflowing. It was weird and a little confusing, juxtaposed with the open hostility wafting off a few of the people behind her, but reassuring just the same. “Nobody’s going to hurt you either.” She said, and she moved then, shifting from her crouched position and sitting down cross-legged across from him. “Thank you, by the way,” she said after a second, looking like she really meant it, “For saving my life.”

That surprised him, and he didn’t really know what to say in response. His mind played back images of a chainsaw and sparks against the night sky. “You are welcome,” he said after a second, voice still sounding strange and not like his own to him.

Past her, a few of the people were whispering to one another as they watched him. It made him uncomfortable and nervous to have no idea what they were saying. The cop still had his eyes fixed on him suspiciously, and a few of the others in particular did as well: the blonde girl who had stabbed him before, the strong one who sounded English, the small girl who was quick on generators.

 _Okay. This is going okay. No one has hurt you yet. Keep going,_ he encouraged himself. After picking through many versions of words he remembered and choosing some, Philip turned back to Claudette. “What do you want from me?” he asked her slowly in English, being far more careful with the language than he needed to and trying to keep from looking past her to the others, as anxious as he was to watch everyone’s reactions for danger, “If you do not want to hurt me, what do you plan to do with me?”

Her expression fell a little. “No—we don’t—I just want to talk to you.”

Philip glanced at what little he could see of his bound arms.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding genuinely pained. “We didn’t know how you’d react. Sometimes we talk to you and then you forget about it after and it’s like you don’t know us anymore, so we were trying to be careful. You’re calm though, right? And you won’t attack us,” she asked.

Without breaking eye contact, Philip nodded. She started to get up and move towards him.

“What are you doing?” said the policeman in disbelief, starting forward, “Don’t untie it—the first thing it tries to do when it wakes up is talk her into letting it go, and still none of you are worried about this?” he asked, turning to the others.

Claudette paused, looking back at them. _Damn it. That was stupid of me._

“It’s okay,” said Philip quickly to the girl, eyes on the policeman as the man’s fingers tightened around the spear he held. “You’re afraid of me. I will stay like this.”

The girl looked from him, to the policeman, to the boy who’d tried to warn Philip to stay asleep, and then slowly sat back down. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“Me too,” he just barely heard the redhaired girl whisper, leaning lean over to the boy who’d tried to warn him, “Ace and I thought we got lucky, but our timing was actually really shit for the both of them. So. My bad.”

The boy didn’t say anything back, but he gave a single nod, still watching Philip and the policeman, not the redhaired girl.

 _Okay,_ thought Philip carefully, far too conscious of his own heartbeat as he watched the policeman waiting for him to do something wrong a few feet away. _Think this through. It’s not great, but you’re alive. You’re alive because they helped you. Even after…_ So much had happened. It was confusing, and looking back on it scared him—he scared himself. Usually, hunting them down was just his job—his role. But today had been different. He could still remember the way the fury had felt coursing through him, how much he had wanted to kill them—to hurt them. To tear them apart with his own hands. And why? Why had he done that? They’d been begging for their lives in the basement—begging for him to stop, and to listen to them, and that had only made him angrier. He looked over at the redhead. She had been watching him, like everyone else, so their eyes met, and he felt ashamed, remembering what he’d done to her. _No wonder you are all afraid of me,_ he thought, feeling defeated, _I would fear me too. The policeman is probably right._

“Do you remember us?” asked the small girl in front of him.

 _Oh yes,_ thought Philip. He knew who all of them were. He’d killed each and every one of them countless times on a hook. There were more specific memories too—he remembered knocking the glasses off the one with a white business shirt and watching him struggle to run away injured and mostly blind. He remembered hearing one of the girls sing when he was between trials, and snapping the older man in the torn suit’s leg once when he’d managed to rescue one of the others from the basement and failed to get away himself, remembered the way the crack had sounded and the leg had hung. He remembered dragging the girl in the ski cap through the mud of the swamp and butchering her, and he could recall his first trial with this girl, and the way she had cowered at his feet—too scared even to run from him, and how he had felt nothing. Because it had been right—they had been meant to suffer. This was punishment. Wasn’t it?

 _You helped them, though,_ he told himself accusingly. _So why? Why do you feel guilt now, why did you protect them? Why aren’t you fighting? Isn’t this your job—your right?_ Was it? _I don’t know,_ he thought back, _I don’t know anymore. If they’re lying, why save me? Why do I have this scar I don’t remember on my hand? Why does all of this feel wrong?_ He was torn, his knowledge and his gut pulling him in opposite directions. Philip had never talked with any of them before, and it was surreal—they were so...normal. So much like people he could have met anywhere.

“What are you?” he asked Claudette, leaving her question of his memory left unanswered.

She blinked in surprise.

“Us?” asked the man who sounded like he was English, “What’re we? What’re you.”

“I’m…Claudette Morel,” answered the girl, holding up a hand towards the man who had spoken to quiet him. Philip remembered that, from before, from the basement. “I’m just a…normal person. I’m 20…or, maybe,” she thought for a second, “Maybe 22, or 23? I’m not sure—but that’s what we all are,” she added, “different ages, but we’re all just regular people. I was a college student?”

 _That can’t be right,_ thought Philip, mind working as fast as it could to try to process information and place it. _That’s wrong. I know what you are._ But looking at the small girl before him, he wasn’t sure. It was a horrible, bottoming-out feeling. He didn’t want her to be right. He couldn’t even begin to process yet what that would mean, but he knew it would be too much against him to be able to handle.

“How about you?” asked the policeman from behind her. “You hunt people like it’s a sport, kill them over and over for what—some sick fun? Survival? Just a job?”

There was overpowering animosity behind the words, and while it had been in the back of his mind the whole time, Philip was suddenly very aware that if the man came at him, he wasn’t going to be able to fight back. He was just going to die. Philip hadn’t tried to break free from the restraints pinning his hands behind the tree before, because he’d known if he tried they might attack him, but he did now, testing their strength and trying to be subtle about it, because he knew if the policeman saw him that would probably be it. The motion shot pain down his left arm, and he looked over at it in surprise, only remembering when he saw the white bandage around the arm that he’d been hit by the chainsaw there.

“Hey,” said the boy who broke hooks, glaring at the cop, a warning tone to his voice.

“Well?” asked the policeman again, taking a step forward, unphased by the younger man. “What are you? A serial killer? A cultist? Just a thug?”

“No,” answered Philip, looking up at the policeman. _What else am I supposed to say? Even if I told the truth, how would I begin to answer that?_

“No?” repeated the policeman, taking another step towards Philip, fingers still tightly wound around the spear, at the ready.

 _What can I say to explain,_ thought Philip panicked, _I’m…I don’t even know if I should believe them—believe her about them being just people. They can’t be—I was given a second chance, and vengeance. If I say that, it’ll make them angry no matter what. How can I explain if I’m wrong? And it will all be even worse if I’m right about them._ They were looking at him though, demanding some kind of answer. He tried again to tug against the bonds at his wrists, less careful to not be seen this time in his desire to break free, but whatever had him tied down was strong. _Trapped. I’m trapped here._ They were waiting, and each second he said nothing made the tension in the air worse. He saw the small girl watching him hopefully, and to her he wanted to explain—explain in a way that made sense, and could be understood. Nervous, he ran through a handful of ways of saying what he wanted to in English, trying to find the best one, but ended up settling for simplicity again in his fear of saying it wrong.

“I…thought you…deserved it,” said Philip quietly, watching them.

The girl looked so genuinely and completely surprised by that, and confused, that it took her a second to even understand what he’d said, and as he watched the expression form on her face, Philip knew that what he’d been fearing the whole time had to be true. They were right about him. _There’s no way,_ thought Philip desperately, _Why? Why would the Spirit lie—why..._

Behind her, he saw an expression he recognized on the policeman’s face: righteous anger. The man came towards him, fast, and Philip closed his eyes, and tried to brace himself, expecting to be struck. Waiting, his breathing came in quick and shallow, but no blow came, and after a second Philip opened his eyes. The policeman had stopped, only about two feet away. Claudette and the boy with curly hair she had called Quentin both stood between him and the cop, but he didn’t seem to be trying to push through anymore—almost more tired than angry now.

“I’m sorry,” said Philip, hoping it might matter. He didn’t know what else to say.

“You’re buying this?” the officer asked the two young adults in front of him, ignoring Philip. Both of them stood their ground, and the man sighed. “What were you before this?” the man asked Philip, looking past the little human wall between them and down at their prisoner.

“Just a man,” Philip replied, voice quiet. “Nobody, really.”

“Okay. Then talk,” said the cop. His tense stance didn’t relax, but he moved back a bit. He didn’t sit either, but the added distance still made Philip feel a little safer.

Once the man had retreated, Quentin gave Claudette a nod and returned to where he had been before, and she turned back to Philip and knelt down across from him again. “I’m sorry,” she said again, letting out a breath. “This is hard for us. Trusting someone, after…everything here.”

It made sense. He wouldn’t have trusted himself in their shoes. Philip gave a nod, still a little confused that she and the boy had protected him.

“Okay,” said Claudette thoughtfully, “There’s so much to talk about I don’t really know where to start.” Her expression changed suddenly, into guilt, “Oh, yes I do. I’m so sorry—I didn’t think to—” She took a breath. “What’s your name?”

It was such an oddly human question. It felt so foreign to be asked that after all this time that for some reason it made him sad to be asked it. “My name is Philip,” he answered after a second, “Ojomo.”

“Hah!” said the redhaired girl from a few feet back. “I knew it! I mean, I didn’t _know_ it, but I guessed that one when I was doing bible names!”

 _What?_ thought Philip, looking up at her in startled confusion, absolutely no memory of what she meant.

“Sorry,” said the redhead, “I forgot you don’t remember that anymore. I’ll shut up. Go on.”

“Philip,” repeated Claudette, smiling at the name. “Okay, nice to officially meet you then, Philip.” She held out a hand on instinct, and then immediately looked like she wished she could die as she remembered that his hands were tied behind the tree. “Philip,” she started again, trying to recover, “for a while now, we’ve sort of been able to make friends with you here. I don’t really know how it started, or why, but you let us go once during a trial, and then again the next time.”

 _I did what?_ Philip had no memory of that. He looked for it, because the expression on her face was so sincere it was hard to believe that she was lying, but try as he might, all he could find was memory after memory of killing her.

“But then it was like you forgot about us completely,” she said, “And you were almost…It was like you were worse than before. You killed some of us—not on hooks, but. Yourself.”

He did remember that. The way it had felt, the praise from the Entity for a job well done, the way she had begged him to stop and clung to the lifeless body of her friend. _What the fuck am I?_ thought Philip, suddenly and overwhelmingly sickened by the memory. _What the fuck am I now?_

“But then, you remembered. Or—or you just decided to help us again, and you tried to talk to Dwight—the uh, the one with glasses and a white shirt,” she added, gesturing in the air like there was any kind of hand gesture that could convey glasses and a white shirt.

Philip knew who it was from the description anyway though, and he looked for him in the group, but didn’t see him.

“You don’t remember any of this?” she asked again, and he shook his head. That made her look sad, but he could tell it also wasn’t unexpected. “I figured,” she said quietly. “You sort of told Dwight once before that you couldn’t remember things that had happened before. And after that you forgot us again. We tried talking to you a lot after that, and I kept bringing you flowers—Meg kept bothering you,”

 _Meg. That’s right._ The redhead, she had told him her name in the basement. The one who had been so insistent on them being friends. His memory of carving his blade into her face and running her through a hook was very fresh, and it hurt him to think about it, so he tried to shut it out. The attempt was not very successful.

“That was sort of starting to work,” continued Claudette, “But then—last time happened. And it was like being back to square one again, except you were angrier. Like you didn’t remember us at all. Do you…still…not?” she asked, right on the edge of hopeful and pained.

“I don’t,” said Philip, feeling bad that he couldn’t give her the answer she wanted. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember anything you’ve said.”

But,” she argued, “You did stop—even before you got hurt, right? Dwight said something, in the basement, and you didn’t hook me. If you don’t remember us at all, why did you stop?”

 _Why?_ Philip thought back, going over the memories he had of the basement. Everything was so drenched in emotion—in rage and hatred and bloodlust, that it was hard to think right. Even the colors were wrong. _I didn’t stop, did I?_ But no, she was right. “Your name,” said Philip, looking back at her.

“My name?” she repeated, confused.

 _Fuck,_ thought Philip, confronted with something more complicated to explain and nervously choosing vocabulary. “I…A scar appeared on my hand yesterday, which I did not remember getting,” he said carefully.

“Oh—” she said, recognition flashing in her eyes, “I saw that—Like an M and half a circle.”

He shook his head. “It is a C and M, drawn blind.” It had not taken him very long to figure that out. Waking up from a normal night to find a very definitively purposeful scar on his palm had absolutely no memory of getting had been of immediate interest and concern to him, and he’d spent several hours trying to figure out how and what had happened. There had been no mention of anything in his journal—not just about the hand, but unusual at all. After about an hour of digging through his writing and staring at his hand looking for answers, Philip had caught his reflection in a piece of glass in one of the windows and it had suddenly hit him that he’d been looking at it wrong. A ‘CM’ at least could make sense, and that would be the mark left behind in a handprint now, or the way the letters might have ended up looking if carved into his hand without looking. The fact that, after thinking it through, the letters looked to him like they appeared the way they would if he’d put his own hand against something sharp and tried to leave them there had bothered him. If he’d probably done it to himself, then why—and when? He had still been wondering about it when he’d gone into his next trial, and with the search of the past few hours still in the back of his mind, when people had started to shout her name at him, the initials had clicked as a possibility. It had probably been stupid to assume or even wonder if that’s what it was, but there hadn’t been even another _maybe_ until then. The first possible answer, and it had immediately gotten his attention and made him wonder.

“Why…How did you get that?” Claudette Morel asked, trying to work through it like he had.

Philip shrugged. “That is why I stopped. I wanted to know as well.” He still didn’t know. Or even if the marks _were_ because of her name.

“Then,” she said slowly, going over the events of the night in her head, “Why did you save us from the Cannibal? It can’t be because you wanted to know about the scar.”

“No,” Philip answered, thinking over that question again himself.

“Then, why?” she asked, watching him. Big eyes. Dark, almost black, like rich earth. Like his brother, like his niece.

“I don’t know,” said Philip honestly, feeling empty. He took a breath and picked carefully over verbs and vocabulary, trying to find what he meant to say in a way that would not be misunderstood, and kind of hoping for a better answer for himself. “I am sorry,” he said slowly, “I wish I knew better what to say. I woke up in the grass, and I remembered being hurt, in the basement. I could tell that you had tried to heal me, and saw that you were fighting, and going to die. I did not want that to happen, because it seemed…wrong…at the time, so I fought.” It was simple. It had been simple at the time.

Disoriented, a horrible pain in his chest. He remembered waking to the sound of a chainsaw, and screams. His last memory had been being run through on the Entity’s claw, the confusion and agony, and the knowledge he would probably never wake up again when he lost consciousness. His blade had been gone, but someone had bandaged his chest, and then he had seen them—two of the children he’d tried to kill in the basement, the two who reminded him the most of himself. Hurt. Struggling against a man larger than Philip, wielding a chainsaw. Another hunter. The girl had had his sickle, and she was trying to protect the boy with it, holding back something she must have known she did not have the strength to beat. Philip had not thought things carefully through, weighed options, looked for answers—he had just known very definitively in that instant that if he did nothing, they would die, and that he didn’t want that to happen. So, he had acted.

It was the truth, but Philip didn’t like his answer, because it made him feel stupid—impulsive. Simple. Things he knew he had been called many times, although he couldn’t remember by who. He knew it probably sounded about as convincing as he’d felt saying it. And yet for some reason, it seemed to make the girl happy, and she smiled at him.

That sight was so foreign to him now. No one was every glad to see him, and they shouldn’t be. He was a reaper—he brought death, and vengeance, and pain. So much time had gone by that he had forgotten what it felt like to have someone look at you like that, and now it made him feel miserable, because he didn’t deserve it. _Don’t look at me like that, child. I have sacrificed you on a meat hook like an animal and killed you by my own hands._ Those thoughts finally broke something open inside him, something that had been preying at the edge of his mind, but he had been trying to avoid, and it came at him all at once then, like a rockslide, breaking him down and burying him.

“You said before that you…” she paused, thinking about how to phrase it. “Worked for the Entity, and hurt us because you thought we deserved it?”

Philip couldn’t say anything, so he just nodded, struggling through the weight of memory after memory throwing itself at him under a new context. There was so much. There was too much to ever move past.

“Can you explain what you mean?” she asked hesitantly.

All about him, Philip was very aware of the eyes on him. Everyone was waiting. “I,” Philip tried, and had to stop. Every face he was looking at, he had memories for. Memories of screams, of death, of pleading for their lives, or trying to shield one another. And he had never once taken pity on any of them. _I have done so much,_ thought Philip, broken by the realization, _Far worse than I did for Azarov. I can…I can never make up for this. I cannot come back from it. I am a murderer. Not just a tool, or an accident, not in vengeance. I am…I am just a killer. Gods, I have…the things I have done. How could…I…_

He lost his focus on the world outside him for a few seconds, dragged down by the voice in his head. When he re-focused, Claudette was looking at him, concern on her face. “I thought you were something else,” Philip managed. _Bad people. Dead people. People like me._ “Evil,” he added after a second, hoping that would be enough that she would not ask again.

“Do you believe us now,” she said, looking worried. “That we aren’t?”

Philip nodded wordlessly. _I do._ Ever since he’d first entertained the idea, more and more things had fallen into place and made sense. Ways they had acted, things they had said, things he had done. How had he missed it? How had he done this for so long without ever once doubting himself, wondering about them? For fuck’s sake, so many of them were just kids.   _What the fuck am I?_

To his dismay, when he nodded she looked so relieved at it, as if him currently lacking the desire to tear her heart out of her chest was something good, not just the absence of something impossibly vile.

“I don’t know what you want with me,” said Philip, clearing his throat to dig past the emotion he was trying hard not to let overtake him. “But the policeman is probably right. If I have forgotten you before, I am a danger to you. It would be smarter to kill me.”

Claudette stared at him in disbelief, completely taken aback. Behind her, most of the others looked similarly surprised. Even the policeman himself.

“Even with that aside,” added Philip quietly, looking away because he couldn’t stand to look at her face any more, “If you want to kill me as retribution, I will not try to stop you. I would deserve it.”

He was scared. The thought of dying like this terrified him for the same reason it had years ago, when the Entity had found him. If he had been unsure where he would end up before, there was certainty now, and it petrified him. But after all of this, it was their right, if they wanted it. It was the only gesture he could make. The only attempt at repayment he could offer. Even if it meant death, in the worst possible way.

Philip lowered his head and looked at the ground, letting himself lean forward and rest, head bowed, against the weight of his arms behind the tree. He had never been so desolate.

“Kill—? No,” said Claudette, voice full of worry for him, which made him feel worse, “We don’t want to kill you—you helped us. Y-You saved us. We—we were hoping we could make friends with you,” she added self-consciously.

What kind of life did they have to be leading in this place to want to be friends with something like him, after everything he had done to them? He was too overwhelmed and ashamed to say anything, so he didn’t. Afraid to even look at her.

“Can we…can we try?” he heard her ask, sad, and worried, and pleading.

“I will try to do whatever you ask,” said Philip after a second, still not daring to look back up at her. “I don’t know what I can do, but I will do what I can to help you.”

“Okay,” said a voice he recognized as the boy who broke hooks. “That’s enough. Come on, there’s too many of us—give the man some space. We don’t all need to be here right now.”

“It’s dangerous to leave her alone with him,” he heard the cop say, voice not quite as hostile as before, but still heavy with mistrust.

“Laurie can stay. She’s on the same boat as you, and she’s a quicker draw than even David and me. That fine with you, Laurie?” the boy replied.

He didn’t hear a verbal response, but it must have been assent, because it seemed to be accepted by everyone. Some of them started to move away. Philip didn’t look up, but he could hear footsteps as they went.

“Can we…?” he heard a voice he recognized as Meg’s say a few feet away.

“Sure, unless it seems like too much,” came the boy who broke hooks and at this point Philip had to guess was the leader’s reply. “Just read the situation.”

“I don’t like it,” he heard the policeman say, his voice getting further away as he spoke.

“We aren’t going out of line of sight,” was the boy’s irritated, barely audible reply. Then they were gone.

His chest ached from the wound the Entity had given him, and Philip latched onto that. A simple fact, one he didn’t have to feel much over, but present enough pain to offer distraction. _What am I supposed to do?_ he thought, head still down, eyes on his legs, scarred from some things he remembered and some he did not. It was a worst-case scenario for him. He’d done the same thing twice, much worse this time than before. _Unknowing executioner._ The thought came absently with several hundred others, but it stuck. The thing was, he wasn’t even sure if it was true. Looking back, he knew, he _knew_ that he had been sure what he was doing was correct, that they were what he had been told. But. What kind of excuse was that for this level of blindness? Was that something you could really not know? As real as they seemed to him now, it was hard for even him to believe himself.

“Hey.”

Claudette. Philip could tell from her tone that the girl wanted him to look up. He didn’t want to, but he did, because he’d promised to cooperate.

When he looked up. there were only four of them remaining. Claudette, the blonde girl who often stabbed him in trials and by process of elimination must be called Laurie, and then the redhead—Meg, and the one Claudette had called Quentin. They were watching him with a variety of expressions, but not even the blonde girl really looked hostile. Most of them seemed more cautious or curious than anything, which just made him feel worse.

Trying to ignore as much of how he felt as possible, Philip turned his attention to Claudette and nodded at her to continue whatever it was she had wanted to say.

“Can you tell us? About yourself?” she asked softly.

“About myself?” he asked, a little surprised.

“Yeah,” she replied. She put a hand to her chest, like she was introducing herself to a classroom. “I’m from Montreal. I like botany and the Beach Boys and reading, and I got stuck here because I got lost taking a walk on my way home from school.”

The other three watched her, and then looked at Philip, waiting for him to respond in kind.

“I am from…Wisconsin. Before that, Nigeria,” said Philip after a second, not wanting to talk about himself, but honoring his promise to do what she asked.

“How did you end up like this?” asked the blonde girl, watching him carefully. “Most of the killers here we know anything about were murderers before. That’s only three of them for sure, but.”

“I did kill someone,” answered Philip, tired. “My boss.”

“Why?” asked Meg, sitting cross-legged and leaning forward.

So he told them. Slowly, and in chunks, sometimes revisited for clarity. It wasn’t a long story, but they all wanted to know so much about it. About what Azarov was like, how long it had taken for the Entity to arrive, what it had said, what it sounded like, how long it had taken him to get used to the killing. Answering them was uncomfortable and miserable for Philip, but he trudged his way through, doing his best to keep up despite his anxiety towards the language, his dislike of the memories and discomfort at recounting them, the general weariness and pain he felt, and the complicated nature of their questions.

It was odd, talking with other people after so long. They were all very persistent. When he started to explain things, Claudette had been almost exclusively the one to ask questions, but as he kept going the entire thing almost turned into a group discussion—sometimes the kids even pitching theories to him for how things had worked. They never seemed horrified either, at least not at the things he had done—not even the blonde girl, who to his extreme surprise thoughtfully commended him on his decision to shove his boss into a car crusher. At least as unexpectedly, all four of the kids were indignant on his behalf when they figured out that one murder was probably why he’d been taken by the Entity to kill for it, and went on about that for a while. It was a hopelessly overwhelming out of body experience for Philip, talking to so many people at once for so long, and about himself, after years of…basically nothing. Even before he’d come to the Entity’s realm, he’d lived alone, with really not much of anything for five years but casual conversations. He was so out of practice it was pathetic, and he would have probably been mortified at the way he perceived his attempts to speak with them if that emotion hadn’t already been preoccupied with the fact that he had personally killed all four of the people he was speaking to, on multiple occasions.

Still, after about an hour and a half of this, it got easier. All four of them were generally so friendly towards him that despite himself he started slowly to feel less miserable and to process at least a little of this new information that overwhelmed him. He could tell they were trying to make him feel better, but even though he knew that, he couldn’t entirely stop it from working. It seemed wrong to him, for them to let him off so easily. Every time he would describe what something was like for him here, or the part of the process of being a reaper for the Entity, they would discuss it and dissect it and re-paint it in the most understandable way—sometimes leaving it making more sense to Philip after they’d taken a swing at it than it had before, even though they were his experiences. All of the kids were so dedicated to this process that it was honestly a little frustrating. It wasn’t at all that Philip wanted to be hated, or to suffer, or die—the threat of similar very real possibilities in his near future were keeping a constant undercurrent of fear running through him—but just the same, it didn’t feel right. The way they took his side so quickly made him feel guilty and wrong, like he must be lying to them or representing himself unfairly, to be so easily forgiven. He couldn’t stop thinking about things he’d done to them, like looking into mirrors containing his worst decisions.

No matter how often they smiled at him, or spoke in a friendly tone, there were overwhelmingly more memories of their fear, and suffering. Unimaginable things he had done. What even could someone hope to do, in the face of something like that? To repair anything? It was exhausting, and miserable, and there was no escape from it.

It was strange to him that they were so…normal in how they interacted with him. None of the little group had really been hostile towards him when they started to talk, but it had been awkward and tense for them too at the star, and things got simpler for them as time went on, like it did for Philip—although, not in anything like the same timeframes. It only took the redhead about fifteen minutes to start joking about things, and the rest of them seemed fairly comfortable after maybe an hour. Philip tried to ask them questions too—about themselves (partially to give himself a chance to breathe and partially because he genuinely wanted to know), and while they mostly deflected and redirected the conversation back to him, he learned a lot. Not all of the survivors stayed in the same place outside of trials, and they had had to grow the group they had now from nothing. They were all from different places and backgrounds, and some of them had known each other longer than others. They had started to band together originally just for some kind of comfort, or community, but for a long time now had been focused on trying to find a way to escape this place for good. There were more killers than Philip had been aware of as well, although most of the ones they mentioned to him he had seen before. Laurie and Quentin were both curious in particular if he knew anything about two specific killers—ones they called the Nightmare and the Shape, and Philip learned that they had each known one before, although he couldn’t really get either of them to elaborate on that.

“I can’t help you much,” said Philip, whose confidence and speed in his conversational English had become much quicker after being forced to speak it for a couple of hours, doing his best to think through any memories he had of the two men described. “I see the others sometimes, but I never speak with them. I could tell you what I have seen them do in their time alone, but I doubt that would help. And it has been little, very few times.”

“I’ve been thinking, though,” said Meg, “If you were basically brainwashed into this, doesn’t that mean some of the others might be too?”

“Not all of them,” countered Quentin slowly. “The Nightmare was like this on his own, before coming here, and while I can tell some of it pisses him off, I really don’t think he’s been tricked into any of this.”

Laurie looked a little distracted, considering.

“Definitely,” agreed Meg, “But what about, the like, that angry _The Ring_ girl who just showed up?”

Philip did his best to shrug with his arms tied behind his back. He had no idea what any of the other killers’ experiences had been like.

“Nobody else has ever acted weird, though,” said Claudette thoughtfully. “Just the Wrai—Philip,” she corrected quickly.

“Why do you all call me that?” asked Philip. It had been bothering him for a little while now.

“Sorry,” said Claudette, “It’s still kind of instinctive.”

“No,” Philip corrected himself, choosing his words more carefully this time, “I mean to ask how you knew? The Entity calls me that.”

“Oh,” said Claudette, looking surprised. “Uhm…I don’t.” She glanced at the others.

“I don’t know either,” said Laurie, looking suspicious at this information, “We just all sort of…did.”

“Although we call you other stuff too,” added Meg, “Mr. Bing-Bong, Daddy Longlegs.”

“Meg, that’s just you,” said Quentin.

There was no good way to respond to that, so Philip tried to forget it. “Is it the same for all of us?” asked Philip, looking back at Laurie and Claudette. “Everyone knew our titles?”

“I guess,” answered Meg for them before they had a chance. “Not at first, though. We really did call you like, eleven different things at one point. Ghost, stalker, shade, banshee, hunter, spirit. I personally was a pretty big fan of ‘Phantom’ for a while. Don’t really remember why we settled on Wraith.”

That was interesting, but he didn’t know if it was significant, or what it might mean, so he let the topic drop and they kept going.

About the first question they had asked him that wasn’t about himself had been if he knew anything about a way out. He didn’t. He didn’t even really know how things got _in,_ except himself, and certainly most of them hadn’t given the thing he’d been calling the Iska verbal permission to take them, so he wasn’t sure how much his story had been able to help. Quentin especially had a lot of questions about ways out—things that looked out of the ordinary, questions about the basement, about how the Entity moved, and looked, and the sacrifice process, and things the Iska had said to him. Trying to answer him felt very useless. Philip had never tried to escape—never even looked for a way out. He really hadn’t asked the Entity that much about anything either—which had felt entirely normal and maybe respectful to him before, but strange now.

Finally, after a couple of hours of this, the pain in his chest started to wear on him. He did his best to power through it, finding little details to focus on in the people in front of him, but he ended up starting to drift in and out of consciousness, despite his best efforts. His last intact memory was of one of them asking him if he felt sick.

 

* * *

 

 

When Philip woke up again, the bandages around his chest were gone, and Quentin was bent over him, doing something to his wound.

“Hey,” said Quentin, looking up as he noticed Philip’s eyes open. “Sorry, I’m almost done.”

Philip’s body felt heavy, and slow, and cold, and he felt like vomiting, but knew he didn’t have the strength to actually do it. He was awake enough to be able to tell he was struggling a little, but not awake enough to actually recognize how dazed and disoriented he was. Everything hurt, massively, but distantly at the same time, and he couldn’t make sense out of that. Only that the hole in his chest worried him.

“Am I going to die?” he asked Quentin, looking up at him still mostly out of it.

“No, you’ll be okay” answered the boy, voice reassuring. Philip wasn’t sure that he believed him.

He stayed silent for a few seconds, feeling the stabs of pain from the boy’s work absently, like they didn’t matter. Above him, the boy was focused, brow furrowed and eyes fixed on what he was doing, and Philip couldn’t stop watching him, thinking about things he’d been trying not to. Finally, he couldn’t take it.  

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked Quentin quietly, too tired and sick and half-dead not to ask what he’d been wondering about for hours.

“No,” said Quentin, looking back down at him. “I’m not.”

“You should be,” said Philip, voice tired and thin. “I would be.”

“I don’t know,” Quentin replied, eyes on the torn chunk of flesh he was dressing, “I’ve been hurt so many times, I don’t think I’m really afraid of getting hurt anymore. Just of being hurt.”

“What is the difference?” asked Philip, trying to keep his eyes open and having a hard time. As far as he could remember, those words basically had the same meaning in English. Both verbs that meant something happened.

“Getting hurt is just something that happens to you, being hurt is something someone does on purpose. I don’t know,” he added after a second, taking a gel dressing out of his medkit and applying it to Philip’s chest, “Pain isn’t so bad on its own. It’s other things that go with it.”

Philip did his best to understand that through the fog in his head. “I have hurt you, though,” he said quietly after a moment, “And all of your friends. Probably many times in front of you.”

Quentin didn’t say anything, just kept working.

“You could kill me,” said Philip. He wasn’t even really sure why. All he could feel was sad, and lost, and through the pain and the cold and the urge to vomit he was too weak to follow through on, he just wanted peace. Even more than that, he wanted to understand. “It would be very easy.”

Above him, Quentin’s hands stopped moving, and the boy looked down at him with an expression he couldn’t quite place. “I don’t wanna do that,” he said after a moment, “I like you.”

“Why?” asked Philip, feeling something like despair well up in his chest.

“You’re…pretty much the same as us,” answered Quentin after a second, carefully going back to his work. “Just lonelier.”

For a minute, Philip lay against the tree in silence, trying hard to take that in and accept it for the offer it was, and failing, while a person he had caused endless suffering for bandaged up his chest. Finally, after a bit, he could feel himself starting to go under again, and while Philip was only half-conscious, he was awake enough to know he didn’t want to pass out again without at least saying something. He looked up at Quentin, vision getting blurry as he did, trying to find some response to give that might matter. “I am…sorry,” said Philip finally, breaths coming in shallow and short, struggling weakly to keep his eyes open.

“We know,” said Quentin gently. “Just hang in there—you’re gonna be fine.”

 

* * *

 

 

 “How is he?” asked Quentin, sitting down at the fire beside Claudette.

“Okay. He woke up for a little while and talked to Jake, but he’s asleep again,” she replied, looking over at Dwight’s drawn face. “Better, I think,” she added hopefully, tucking her knees up to her chest. “How’s Philip?”

“A little better too,” replied Quentin, leaning his head against the log at his back, exhausted. “I think we wore him out, but the wound’s getting better. And a lot faster than we heal out here.”

“He’s nice,” said Claudette after a second, watching the flames in front of her. “I don’t know what I expected, or if I really expected anything at all, but…”

“It’s weird,” agreed Quentin thoughtfully.

“It’s fucked up,” said Meg, who was laying on her stomach beside Claudette, watching the campfire too. “I kinda feel like I got off easy now. I mean, I die a lot, but at least I didn’t get tricked into killing people all the time.”

Quentin nodded.

“And for what,” continued Meg, “—because he killed a guy? Like, one time. And vigilante-justice style.”

“Yeah,” said Quentin, staring off into space, set expression on his face. “My dad did that. I don’t love the implications.” Ending up here, as a Killer? Just for doing what needed to be done?

“What are we going to do with him?” asked Laurie after a second, looking over at Jake. She and Meg had given everyone else the medium-version of what they’d heard from Philip while Quentin and Claudette had been working, and they were all at least sort of up to speed. “We can’t just keep him here, tied to a tree forever.”

Jake was leaned forward, chin resting on his palm, watching Dwight sleep in his lap. “We let him go,” he said after a second, turning to look at the others.

“If we let him go, won’t the Entity just…wipe his mind again, or whatever it does?” asked Laurie, picking at the grass beside her.

“You all really buy all of this?” asked Tapp again, but with much less energy than he’d started out with. He was tired too, at this point. It hadn’t exactly been the hopeful team-up Ace and Meg or he had been envisioning when they’d got him back to the campfire with them after their trial. He certainly hadn’t expected a group of them to come stumbling in with a half-dead kid, a couple injuries, and a captive killer they were dead set against putting in the ground. The Wraith still seemed suspicious to him, but even he wasn’t sure anymore. Pretty damn detailed backstory for someone who would have probably had to come up with that on the spot. Besides which, he liked to think he was good at reading people, and the man they had tied to a tree seemed more defeated than anything. Even so, though…

“What reason would he really have to lie?” asked Jake. “If he wanted us not to kill him, he could have thought of something better. He hasn’t tried to escape, either.”

“Could be a trap,” Tapp replied. “Maybe not even his idea.”

“What would the Entity even get outa this?” asked Kate. “But I’m with Laurie. If we let him go, he just forgets us again.”

“What were you all going to do if talking to him worked?” asked Feng, looking over at the little group of four who’d been in on the plan.

“We didn’t expect to get this far,” said Claudette unhappily. “I mean—as fast as this. We didn’t have one yet.”

“We can’t keep him,” said Jake slowly, “If we do, it’s only a matter of time before the Entity does something about it.”

“You have a plan?” asked Nea, looking up hopefully as she recognized something in his tone.

“Maybe,” said Jake. “Thank Dwight when he wakes up.” He stretched his arms and glanced over at where their prisoner lay a few yards off. “Okay. Someone trade off and stay with Dwight so I can talk to him.”

“Can’t we wait?” asked Claudette pleadingly. “Let him sleep for a little at least before we make him leave?”

Jake thought that over for a moment, then sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, why not. An hour or two will probably be fine.” He slumped back against the log, pretty worn out himself after the day they’d all had, and carefully readjusted Dwight’s position in his lap, trying to make sure the sleeping friend wrapped up in his coat was comfortable and not putting any pressure on the head injury.

“Sorry, by the way,” said Ace after a short silence, glancing over at Tapp, who was distantly brooding into the fire. “We’re, uh, usually not as much of a mess. Or all at each other’s throats. We don’t typically have this kind of a day.”

Tapp looked over at him in surprise. “Oh. Right,” he said as what Ace had said connected and he remembered that this wasn’t just an irritating problem, but also his more or less official introduction to a group of strangers. “I’m sure I haven’t really made any friends today myself.”

“No, Ace is super wrong; people here fight all the time,” said Feng, moving from where she had been using Nea as a pillow, and propping herself up on her elbows. “I think it’s normal if you think they’re all nuts.”

“Oh, you’re definitely crazy,” answered Tapp, adjusting into a more comfortable position by the fire, “And somehow it’s still been a better day than I’ve had here before.”

“And it’s been some kinda day, huh?” said Kate, laughing softly to herself. “Nice to see you again, though, David,” she added to Tapp, smiling.

“Yeah, and I’m sorry we were all like ‘quit your job, come join my emo band,’ and then when you did, everyone spent the rest of the day yelling at you,” added Meg, in a friendly tone, trying to lighten things up. “In our defense, _you_ spent the rest of the day trying to kill our other new friend, so it was just a bad time for everybody.”

“Your other new friend is a mass murderer,” answered Tapp, leaning his head back against the log and closing his eyes for a second. He let out a huge breath, like he was trying to manually pump the stress out of his body. It was more or less how all of them felt: absolutely exhausted. “You all really need to think over how much you’re risking by trusting that thing,” he added after a second in the voice of a prophet who knew he wasn’t going to be listened to.

“I don’t see why it’s such a big deal,” said Nea, “What’s he gonna do, kill us again? Damn, what a change for the worse.” She grinned at Feng, hoping for a laugh. Feng just sighed and patted her on the knee and went back to using her as a pillow.

Everyone was quiet then for a bit. There were a few really nice minutes of nothing but the fire crackling beside them, and they got rest, if not sleep, everyone thinking through little chunks of their own struggles, trying to sort out new information—a few of them too tired to think much about anything except how much they wished they were asleep.

“Hey,” said Jake after a while, nudging Meg with his foot to prompt a response. “He said the Entity doesn’t always watch trials?”

“Yeah?” answered Meg, turning her head to look back at him. “But it sounds kind of random.”

“That isn’t what matters,” he replied, staring past the fire into the woods, face contemplative. “Yeah,” he muttered to himself after a second, gaze still fixed, “It could work.”

 

* * *

 

 

Philip was vaguely aware of someone speaking to him as he drifted back in from unconsciousness. He blinked, trying to pull himself fully into wakefulness, and his eyes focused on the boy who’d been the first one he saw when he woke before—the one who seemed to be the leader. The boy was crouched in front of him, black hair falling into his eyes, a hand on his shoulder and saying something that Philip missed. His chest hurt less, and he felt a little better—less spent and weak, if still a bit shaky.

Doing his best to shake off the lingering fuzziness in his mind, Philip lifted his head to be able to see the boy better.

“You up?” asked the boy, letting go of him.

Philip nodded. _Jake,_ he remembered as his body continued to wake up. When the others had spoken with him, he had asked about this boy and they had called him ‘Jake’.

“Good,” said Jake.

Behind him, Philip became aware of the others—all of the others, like before. _That may not be good,_ his mind offered. _How?_ Philip responded mentally to himself, _What can I possibly have left to lose?_

“Can you find your way back to your area?” said Jake, standing back up from his crouch.

 _Back to…wait—my…the garage?_ “What?” asked Philip, confusion passing through him.

“We can’t keep you here,” answered Jake, looking down at him, “It’s only a matter of time before the Entity notices if it hasn’t, or if it has, then before it does something about it. It’s not safe for us to have you stay.”

“You want…” Philip trailed off, putting together what he was hearing into meaning. “You want for me to go back?”

“Yeah,” replied Jake.

“I will…” Philip said haltingly, watching the course of events in his head as he spoke, “…The Iska—I will forget. I will be the same as before, and kill you all again.” _I can’t,_ he thought, feeling anxiety build in his chest, _Not again._ It was too much. The memories he still had with perfect clarity of butchering these people and feeling nothing, the thought of becoming that again was too unbearable to face. He looked up at Jake in desperation. “I understand I cannot stay, but if that is your choice, please, kill me,” he said, pleading with the boy standing over him. “Or return my sickle and I will do it myself. It would be better,” He stopped, voice catching in his throat.

“Hang on,” said Jake, raising a hand in a calming gesture. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think we’re to suicide yet. We aren’t asking you to go back to how things were before. During trials, you can tell if the Entity is watching?”

“What?” asked Philip, still overwhelmed at the thought of going back to what he had been before, and confused by the jump in topics, “I—yes. It has a presence. We can feel it and speak with it if we need to.”

“It doesn’t always watch?” asked Jake, more for confirmation than new knowledge.

“Yes,” answered Philip.

Jake nodded slowly. “Okay. Is it here now?”

Philip paused, already close to certain, but sensing for the Entity’s presence just in case. “No,” he answered after a moment. “It is not.”

“Good. Then look,” continued Jake, “There’s no way it doesn’t know what’s going on. We haven’t exactly been subtle. So, we can’t keep you. But we’ll get you back. It’d be better for all of us if, when you go back, you can try to convince it nothing’s changed, but that might be impossible at this point, so we need to know things we can say to get you back fast and for sure if does. Now, I’m guessing after a reset it watches you a little harder?”

“It…” Philip was doing his best to keep up. His mind flashed over memories, trying to find the answer to that. He didn’t remember any time he’d been reset, but from their descriptions of how he’d acted shortly after during the long conversation he’d had with Laurie, Quentin, Claudette, and Meg, it wasn’t very hard to find what must have been trials after those events. He checked them for the Entity, trying to map a pattern. “It does,” he said slowly, mentally taking a minute to make sure. “Usually for somewhere between three trials and six, sometimes less. I think. You said the last time before this, the first time you saw me again it was you?” he asked Quentin, picking him out of the group, “With…” Philip looked at the people he recognized, and realized he had no idea what most of them were called.

“Nea, Feng, and Ace?” asked Quentin, gesturing helpfully to the three in question.

 _I’m never going to remember all of these names,_ thought Philip, nodding, and then after a second grimacing as the double entendre of that thought hit him. “Yes, then. Usually about three, the last time only twice,” he answered.

“We’ll wait ten to make sure, then,” said Jake. He caught Philip’s expression and seemed to realize he was going too fast then, and took a breath, then continued, speaking a little slower. “You want out, right?”

“Out…Back to the world, you mean?” asked Philip. The boy gave a nod. “But I have told you,” answered Philip carefully, “I do not know how to help you do this.”

“I know,” replied Jake, “But we have some ideas. There’s stuff you can help us with, but only as a killer, so we need you to keep acting like one. If the Entity resets you, we’ll wait a handful of trials for it to quit monitoring, and then we’ll get you back.”

“That will not work,” answered Philip, thinking it through. “Even if it does not watch trials, the Entity receives the sacrifice. It will notice if I begin to fail.”

Jake nodded contemplatively. “Yeah, I thought it might be something like that. It’s going to suck for everyone, but we’ll just have to let you kill some of us regularly so it looks legitimate.”

“What?” asked Philip, horrified. “No—I—”

“—I’m sure you don’t want to,” cut in Jake, voice an odd mix of understanding and almost accusatively firm, “But this is the only way you can really help us. We aren’t going to like it either, but if it means we might actually be able to get out, it’s worth suffering. And you owe us.”

Philip started to respond, and closed his mouth. The boy was right. As sickening as the idea was, he didn’t have any room to object. _I have to,_ he thought hollowly, _He is right. I owe them this_. “Alright,” Philip said quietly after a moment. “I said I would do what you asked. If you are sure it is what you want, I will try.”

“I’m sorry,” said Claudette from the little group beyond Jake, looking like she meant it.

“You uh…We won’t hold it against you,” added Meg, trying to be helpful. “At least we’ll all be suffering together,” she added, making a motion like the woman from the ‘We Can Do It’ posters from America in the second World War.

“It’ll give us a chance to find out some things we, as survivors, never could,” continued Jake.

As he listened, facing the thought of having to go through the motions and kill again, suddenly a much worse possibility struck Philip. “—Wait,” he cut in, suddenly desperate.

Jake paused, and nodded at him to continue.

“I don’t know how it works,” Philip pleaded, mind stumbling over ways of putting this into words in his hurry, “If I go back and the Entity erases memories, it may see them. I—I do not know how it…I am not sure if the Iska takes a period of time, or my thoughts of people, or if it looks through the memories one by one for things it finds dangerous. It may see everything you have planned.”

“That’s true,” acknowledged Jake, “I thought of that, but it still doesn’t change much for us. We’re stuck already. Worst case, we’re no better off than before. And there’s a decent chance, from the way you describe it, that it’s not that meticulous.”

 _Not much change for you?_ thought Philip in dismay. “But if you are wrong, that will be it,” said Philip, a stab of pain shooting down his arm as an attempt to sit up straighter bent the injured pinned arm the wrong direction. “It is almost certain you will never get a chance like this again, and I will return to hunting you, forever.”

 _That isn’t a change for them,_ he realized on a delay, watching their expressions after the words were already out, and the realization struck in a way that came down hard, like a blow to the gut that would leave you crumpled on the floor. _That’s exactly the same as they have been living._

“I…” he continued, because he had to find something. “If I die here, that is at least…” _It would be a way out,_ he finished internally, realizing he couldn’t say it. The unknown after death was petrifying, and it scared him, but the thought of this—of everything he had ever regretted, again and again, on repeat forever? That was even worse. Death would be an escape—a way out. A way for it to be over. _To go back to…_ Images flashed through his mind. Things he had done; things he would do again. To the people in front of him. “It would be safer,” he tried, trying to find some angle of this where killing him would be better for them than the longshot of letting him go. _No, he is right,_ thought Philip, hope fading as every attempt he made in his head to find a reason failed. _I am the only one this is worse for._

Realizing that, Philip stopped. With nowhere left to turn, the will to fight went out of him and his posture slumped forward as he gave up—nothing to fight back against, nothing to be ready for. _Then so be it,_ thought Philip miserably. _I no longer have a right to choose for myself._

“I know it’s a lot to risk,” said Jake slowly, watching Philip carefully, and his tone almost understanding. He crouched in front of Philip to be on his level and let his arms rest on his knees. “But, we don’t have a lot of options. We’ve already done too much to take things back to normal, and we all want to go home. Don’t you?”

 _Home?_ thought Philip, who had not really listened to that question before. He tried to remember it—to picture what that meant. A two-flat in Dodge County, with a familiar chair and a comfortable enough bed and a microwave? A long flight, and old streets in the only place in the world he had ever missed? _How?_ he wondered. Even if he got out, it had to have been a number of years. Even with that, nothing would have really changed though—not for the better. There would probably still be people looking for him—the mob, the police. Hell, his landlord. He wouldn’t even have the nice coat anymore, or the cheap plastic utensils, or the almost untouched pack of beer, waiting, cold in the fridge. Everything would be gone—repossessed. Including the little money he had saved. There wouldn’t even be enough for a ticket home.

And still, somehow, when the thought of it was offered to him, he wanted it. He wanted it so badly that it ached. In all his time here, Philip hadn’t really thought about it. It had never been an option, and he hadn’t wanted to miss it, or to miss anything, so he had closed it off. _I would like to go home,_ thought Philip, internally mourning the loss of the little piece of life he had had. _I don’t think that I can anymore, even if I got out of here, but. I guess…I could try. I could try to go home, and that would be something._

Philip didn’t say anything, but he nodded in response to the question.

“Us too,” continued Jake, “Believe me—we get it. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. It might be a long shot, but at least, with you, we can try. We’ve never really had that before.”

 _Hope,_ thought Philip, and the thought worried him. Hope had never failed to betray him before. _But what is the alternative, to despair?_ That was the real reason he’d seen so many people fall to hope, and he knew it. Life almost never just had something solid like happiness, or prosperity, or peace for those living it to stand on, and when the choice was a trust fall with hope, or to fall on your own sword and give up, it was hardly any wonder people would chose to be lied to again and again by the one concept which promised a small chance of this time finally turning out right. In life, what did anyone ever really have to lose?

“Alright,” answered Philip, meeting Jake’s gaze. “What do you want me to do?”

“Well, there’ll be stuff we want you to check out between trials,” answered Jake. “We can save most of this for later though, since you’re probably going to forget it if we go through it now.”

Talking about that with such finality gave Philip such an empty feeling. He was probably right; it was almost certain that he wouldn’t be able to bluff past the Entity after all of this, but thinking of this version of himself just ceasing to exist, like he’d never been…Philip knew that wasn’t exactly what it was—losing memories wasn’t the same as dying, but at the same time. All of these things he would have wanted to remember. People he had gotten to know a little, things they had said he would have wanted to keep. Even if this worked, it would mean for him, starting from scratch again. Processing all of this, working through it, realizing what he’d done for the first time again. _I wonder how many times I’ve already done this,_ he thought hollowly. _I guess it doesn’t matter._

“What can you tell us that would get you back fast?” asked Jake. Philip zoned back in at the words, and thought through them. “We’ve got some,” continued Jake, “How you got here, your full name. That might be enough, but is there anything better? Something you would have to tell people for them to know it, instead of just facts about you? Maybe stuff you’ve only ever thought about?” he suggested.

“Um…” Philip threw in a placeholder as he tried to think of something. _Okay. What would I listen to. Obviously not reason, because I seem to have completely ignored that. Always. What is something that would work?_ “I have the scar now,” said Philip after a moment, “The initials. And I think I would be surprised that you know my name.”

“Anything else?” prompted Jake, not satisfied.

 _I don’t…_ Philip considered, thinking hard over things he knew he had thought about the survivors or about this place more than once. “The—” he stopped then, looking around the group and realizing the boy he’d been about to mention still wasn’t there. “Where is your other friend?” he asked Claudette, “He was with you in the basement.”

“He’s hurt pretty bad,” she answered, face grave, “He’s resting by the fire. That’s where David is, too—keeping an eye on him.”

“He will be okay?” asked Philip, feeling guilty and worried even though this one actually wasn’t at least directly his fault.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding, “I think so.”

“You were saying?” prompted Jake. Philip looked back at him.

“I have thought before that your friend who is injured, and Claudette remind me the most of myself,” replied Philip with a sort of fatalistic resignation. “You could say that to me.”

“Why?” asked Jake.

Philip didn’t want to answer, but he did. “It is because I used to have to dress like your friend for work,” he replied slowly, “and he has the presence of someone who is often uncomfortable, but good at surviving.” He glanced past Jake to where Claudette was then, feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable. “And for her, I have a brother, and a niece,” he turned his head back towards Jake, feeling painfully awkward, “There are similarities in their appearance. I have thought before that she looks like what a little sister might have looked like if I had one,” he finished quietly.

It was an unpleasant thing to have to voice to a group of people. Private, in a way that was embarrassing because it felt so overwhelmingly stupid. But it would probably be the most likely thing one of them could say quickly which would work on him if he forgot again, so there was no getting around it. _I want to die,_ thought Philip unhappily, for the first time today insincerely. _Maybe there are positive sides to having to forget everything that has happed today._

“Thanks, I think that should work,” replied Jake, standing up again. “Go ahead and cut him loose,” he added, and Laurie walked past him and behind Philip.

The policemen looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. Just gave Philip a hard look. As Laurie knelt behind him, he could feel the restraints pull and the sound of scissors, and then, after a second, the bonds gave, and his arms were free.

Very slowly, still cautious of scaring the people around him, Philip brought his hands in front of him and looked down at his wrists, a little sore from being tied down so tightly. “I am…going to stand,” he said cautiously, making sure this was okay.

Jake nodded and took a step back to give him a little more room.

As carefully and non-threateningly as he could, Philip stood. Standing in a way people found non-threatening had always been difficult for Philip, because he was not a slight man, and just over seven feet tall.

Watching him, he saw everyone in the group’s heads tilt up with him as he suddenly went to stuck on the ground to towering over them. Even the ones he thought seemed to like or be friendly towards him suddenly looked very nervous, except for their leader, Meg, and Claudette.

“Damn you’re tall,” said Meg, breaking the sudden, strained silence and folding her arms across her chest as she looked up at him.

“Yes,” answered Philip, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“Here,” said the girl wearing a ski cap who Quentin had called either Feng or Nea, but Philip was no longer sure which. She moved past the others, holding his bone sickle, and held it out to him.

Philip glanced around at the others for a second, trying to make sure from their expressions that this was okay to do, and then he gingerly reached out and took his weapon from her.

“Thank you,” said Philip.

“Do you know how to find your way back?” asked Jake again, and Philip realized he had never answered him.

“Yes,” Philip replied, “I think so.” He wasn’t actually sure, but he _was_ relatively certain that if worst came to worst, he could call the Entity and it would come pick him up. One way or another.

“Do you want…anything before you go?” asked Claudette, taking a little step closer. “We have some food—and tea?”

 _Food?_ thought Philip in absolute surprise, _They have food? Do they need to eat here? I haven’t eaten anything since…Gods, what does food even taste like?_ Yeah, he did want food, but he felt embarrassed at the thought of saying that, so he didn’t. “I should go,” Philip replied awkwardly, “I think I have already stayed past my welcome.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, looking sad. “You don’t even really know all of us yet—we could talk, and—”

He shook his head. “Your friend is right. I would probably forget in some few hours. I will hear next time,” he offered, seeing her face fall.

“You could get warm at least,” she said quietly, gesturing to the fire.

 _Is she…she is stalling?_ thought Philip in surprise, _To keep me here?_ The thought was alien to him at this point, but it made him feel warm, and he smiled. “Next time,” he said again, wishing that this was something he would get to remember.

Philip turned to look at the group as a whole and gave them a little motion between a nod and a bow. “Thank you,” he said, not sure which of the many things he had said it for—for not killing him, for trusting him, for trying to wake him up in the first place? For forgiving him? For all of it, maybe. “I will do what I can to not let you down.”

Still not really sure how to do this, he took a step to the side, then turned away from them and started to walk.

“Wait!” came Meg’s voice from behind him. He paused and half-turned to look at her.

“Can I, uh—” she took a step towards him and made a sweeping, completely incomprehensible gesture with her arms. He looked back at her in confusion. “Can I give you a hug before you go?” she asked.

 _What…?_ He was too taken aback to say anything, so he just stood there, looking at her stupefied.

“I mean—we’ve gone through some shit, and you might not really remember me, but we had this fun nemesis thing going for a while, and you threw your sword at me once, I’ve flipped you off like, maybe four hundred times. But, like, it’s also been kind of fun sometimes?” she said, taking another couple of steps, “And now I finally got to get to know you, and I know we’ll get you back, so it’s not like ‘goodbye-goodbye,’ but.” There were a lot of emotions fighting for priority on her face, and Philip didn’t have any real idea how to respond. It was so unexpected, and strange to him. “I’ll—like—miss you,” added Meg, rubbing one of her arms with a hand awkwardly, “Even if it’s not for that long. And it sucks you have to go like this. It isn’t fair, and I feel kind of shitty about it, so.”

She stopped, finally seeming to have run out of things to say. _Oh, no—wait, I was wrong,_ thought Philip as she opened her mouth again and kept going.

“I know you’re hurt, but you’re also like eight feet tall and I’m only 5’3”, so I can’t even reach high enough to make it painful,” added Meg as deal-maker.

“Uh,” said Philip, blinking as he tried to unpack all that. “You.” This was all beyond him. It wasn’t the kind of thing that had ever happened to him. Or that was supposed to. It wasn’t a regularly occurring element of life in his experience. The last person he’d hugged had been his mother, goodbye, the last time he saw her, and that had been years ago.

Meg took another step and held out her arms tentatively.

“Uh,” said Philip again, fighting the sudden urge to back away. “It would…I...” She looked so hopeful. “…Alright,” he said finally.

She lit up for a second, and then walked over to him with a serious look on her face. The girl was so small that the top of her head only barely made it past his waist. Meg went to hug him then, and Philip moved his arms up and out to the side to try and get them out of the way, especially since he was still holding onto a weapon made out of sharp pieces of metal and his old boss’s dead body. He didn’t really know what else to do, so he just stood there with his arms awkwardly out to the side as she wrapper her arms around his waist and buried her face in his stomach.

It was unlike anything he had felt for a long time. Human contact in a way that was human, and not violent. Not for years, not since before he’d left Nigeria. He had completely forgotten what that felt like. It wasn’t bad, or uncomfortable, like he had been afraid it would be—maybe in some ways it was still awkward, especially because he didn’t know what to do with his arms, but more than that, it hit him with a wave of homesickness. Long forgotten familiarity, and comfort. And the sensation was so strong that for a second it was difficult to breathe.

Behind her, Claudette walked up slowly and gave him a hesitant look, then moved beside Meg and put her arms around him as well. Somehow, she was even smaller than Meg. _So very little,_ Philip thought, mind again on its own catching similarities in her face and family back home. _A very little sister._

For just a second, Philip was happy. Something else it had been so long since he had felt it that he had forgotten what the emotion even meant.

Philip didn’t want to go, didn’t want the feeling to end, but he knew it couldn’t last. There were rules, and they were right. The longer he stayed, the bigger a threat to their safety he became. Gently, Philip reached down with the hand that did not hold the sickle and tried awkwardly to pat both girls on the back at the same time with it.

They both released him, and Philip took a knee so he could be more on their level. He laid the sickle down in the grass and put a hand on each of their shoulders. “I have to go,” he said, voice gentle, “But thank you both. For not giving up on me. It has been a long time since I had a friend.”

Philip took back his weapon and stood them, again towering over them—over everyone in the group, letting his eyes trace them each for a second, doing everything in his power to etch a memory into his mind forever, even though he knew the attempt was futile and he would lose it soon. Philip nodded at them then, as way of a final goodbye, turned, and walked alone into the fog and the woods ahead, back towards what he had to do.

As he went, Philip tried not to look back, but he did—right at the edge of the woods, to get one last look. The little group of people stood, watching him. Too far away for him to read expressions anymore, but just the same, it meant something that they were still there, seeing him off.

 _Just keep surviving,_ Philip told himself, _Live long enough and things change. You’re good at that._ Then he turned, and was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

Back by the campfire, Meg put an arm around Claudette’s shoulder and leaned on her. Around them, everyone stayed, watching the Wraith walk away. Hoping for the best.

“Do you really think it’ll work?” Feng asked nobody in particular.

“Yeah. Anyway, it’s a shot,” replied Jake, voice and face hard to read. He looked a little less together than usual, no coat, just a t-shirt covered in his and Dwight’s blood.

“Going home,” said Laurie after a moment, expression distant as she watched as the Wraith’s retreating form paused to look back one final time, and then became nothing and melted into the trees. “When are you going to tell him it isn’t 1982 anymore?”

“We’re asking a hell of a lot already,” answered Jake, sounding tired, “He’s got enough without that being today.”

They were quiet again for a second then, still all watching, even though there was no longer anyone to watch.

“Come on,” said Kate after a second. “Everyone looks like hell, and we need rest. Y’all can all stop lookin’ so morose,” she added, trying to cheer them up, “We did a lot of good today. Nothin’ else we can do right now but rest, unless y’all want to pray.”

They listened to her then, and went—slowly, not all at once, alone or in pairs, and returned to the fire, until it was just Laurie and the little group who had first tried to find Philip left. Finally, Meg linked her arm around Claudette’s and turned them both back towards the fire. As they went, Quentin put a hand to his necklace and whispered something—maybe he actually did pray, and then turned to go, pausing for a second to when he realized Kate had seen him to give her an embarrassed look. Kate waited a second herself, watching Laurie, who seemed very far away.

“Laurie?” Kate asked softly. “You alright?”

Laurie stirred then, and turned slowly to look at her. “We’ve been here almost the exact same amount of time,” Laurie said, without any identifiable emotion attached to the words except maybe thoughtful. She went to the fire then, giving Kate a nod as she passed.

Kate watched her go, then turned back to look at the woods one last time herself. “Please,” she whispered, so quiet no one could possibly have heard it. “If there’s anything out there in the universe that cares, please, just this once.” She let out a shaky breath then, forced the relaxed smile to return to her face, squared her shoulders, and went to join the others.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigeria went through a lot of rough stuff during Philip's lifetime. It had been a British protectorate under heavy colonization since invasions in the 1800s, and finally won independence in 1960 through strong movements for the people's right to freedom and their own government following World War II. At this point, Nigeria was broken up into several regions. The country was presented with a parliamentary system of government. This was unstable, however, and decolonization was given more because the United Kingdom wanted to wash its hands of the trouble Nigeria was causing them than out of any kind of pure intentions, and the process was not handled well, and left the country unstable. The north territory ran on an almost feudal system, the southeast Igbo people were used to a community-driven fairly democratic way of governing, and the southwest group was a more lenient monarchy system than the north. These systems did not mesh well. While I am massively simplifying a complicated conflict, the end results of the new system of government over the country was a coup in 1966, which caused the death of many people in the new government. Since a good number of the known members of the coup were Igbo, the event sparked racial tensions and a counter-coup, the leaders of which decided to force the country into a federal system of united government for the country. This led to the Nigerian Civil War, and the 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom, a series of massacres of the Igbo people, killing between eighty and one hundred thousand people in an attempted genocide, and causing a mass exedous from the Nigerian south in search of safety. During the war, many other minority groups suffered as well.
> 
> Unrelated but also incredibly awesome and worth mentioning research note: antihemorrhagics are an super cool invention. Known by a variety of names, hemostatic agents basically serve to vastly slow or stop bleeding. There are a number of kinds, and are especially popular in emergency and military applications. They tend to speed blood coagulation drastically through a number of means. Styptics pencils work by contracting blood vessels, and are literally 'drawn' over a wound, like a crayon. Hemostatic gauze activates a chain reaction in body protein which drastically speeds blood clotting to close wounds, and is often used by EMS to help with arterial bleeding.
> 
>  
> 
> I know it's been a bit of a wait for this one, so I appreciate the patience. I was originally going to do this differently, but there just wasn't a great place to break anything off, and in the end it felt like it all belonged together as one chapter. There really shouldn't be another one so long until the second to last chapter of the fic, though, so my schedule ought to be more regular now. Here's the end of act one! It was a lot of ground to cover, and I really hope you all enjoy it. Thank you again for all the comments and support--they really do mean the world to me.


	27. Bonded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little downtime after sending the Wraith back. Dwight adjusts to his injuries; Jake tries to help him.

“Hey,” said Dwight quietly.

Before he’d dozed off, Jake had tried to mentally set his friend’s voice as a sound to look out for, like an alarm tone. And, as Jake was both a light sleeper and good at things like that, the voice he’d been listening for easily roused him from the little sleep he’d been getting himself, and he opened his eyes and looked down, vision taking a second to focus in the near-dark of the campfire.

Dwight was laying in Jake’s lap, using his coat like a blanket and Ace’s jacket as a pillow to help prop his head up. To Jake, he seemed better as he studied him in the firelight—less exhausted, stronger. The rest had done some work, and the bandage around his head was clean and fresh, and it made the damage beneath it all seem so much more manageable. Still looked pale and worn out, sure, but when did Dwight ever not?

 “Yeah,” Jake replied in a half whisper, noticing out of his periphery that most of the others around the campfire were out too. Not Quentin, who never slept, and right now was quietly talking with Ace, or Laurie, who was staring off into space several feet away, but everyone else was down and out, hard.

“I can’t…” Dwight stopped, like he was second-guessing what he wanted to say. He looked up at Jake for a second, and then away, and then back up at him. After a moment, letting out a long, disappointed sigh, Dwight shifted in his lap so he could see him better, looking agitated. “I, uh…”

“Do you feel okay?” asked Jake, sitting up a hair more and a little concerned now.

“Yeah—yeah, well, no,” replied Dwight, trying to brush the subject off, “I mean, my head hurts…a…lot. I…can’t think of a better adjective than ‘lot.’ Wait…is—is that even? It’s not, is—you know what, never mind. I—” Dwight took another breath, and paused, trying to think through things before speaking. He looked up at Jake again. “Do I seem…not great to you?”

“Not really,” replied Jake, watching him carefully, “Tired. Your head hurting is normal—you got hit with a sledge hammer, so.”

“Yeah, I guess…” weakly, Dwight moved a shaky hand up to his temple and felt at the bandage.

The motion made a wave of relief pass over Jake. Dwight had had trouble even opening and closing his hand earlier, and now something as much more complicated as this looked automatic.

“Shit, I feel like lead,” said Dwight, slowly letting his arm drop back beside him, breathing hard from such minimal effort. He closed his eyes for a second and then looked up at Jake again, squinting in the firelight without his glasses. “I’m just kind of worried. …I.” he paused again and took another breath. “Look, if I ask you something, promise you won’t give me crap about it?” he asked in a voice that sounded even more exhausted than Jake felt.

Jake nodded, expression serious.

“Okay. Okay,” said Dwight, trying to build confidence. “You and me, we met before I ran into anybody else here but her,” said Dwight, pointing at where Meg lay on the ground a few feet off and speaking like he was working through a test question, “We were both trying to sneak for a gen, and I was just walking when all of a sudden you just shoved me over onto the ground because I was about to step in a bear trap, and I remember sitting there watching you disarm it, and after, you gave me this look like you couldn’t believe I’d been about to do something so stupid in front of you.”

“That sounds like me,” acknowledged Jake. He only vaguely remembered that. He remembered the first time he’d _seen_ Dwight—earlier that same trial. The Trapper had been getting close and they’d both heard the terror coming, and looking for temporary shelter they’d come tearing through the same shack from opposite ends and almost collided. It had been maybe only a second, but that one had been a lot more memorable to him, because it had really fucked up his escape plan and he’d almost taken the cleaver through his side, tripping over himself and Dwight. He’d made it out of that, though—although, thinking back, he couldn’t remember if Dwight had.

“You joined up with me and the girls did, and we were the original group for a good while. The four of us have been together ever since. You have to have saved me from…god…I don’t know—seven thousand hooks? At this point?” offered Dwight, face pale and drawn beneath him in the moonlight, “I’ve had about a million conversations with you, and I can remember all of them—you taught me how to use half the tools I know, and break hooks…manageably,” he added, seeing the _can you though?_ look on Jake’s face, “I know you used to live in New York, and you weirdly prefer tea to coffee, but I just can’t,” he stopped and swallowed and then let out a defeated breath, “I can’t fucking remember your name,” he finished, looking pained and ashamed and like he was expecting to be rebuked.

“Oh,” said Jake, “It’s Jake. Park.”

Dwight swallowed again, still looking embarrassed and anxious. “Jake,” he whispered to himself, “Jake. Right—fuck, I know it now—I knew it, I’m sorry,” he added miserably.

“It’s fine,” replied Jake, suddenly having to fight the strong urge to smile, because he knew Dwight would probably take that the wrong way.

“You aren’t mad?” asked Dwight.

“What, that you had trouble remembering something after getting your head bashed in?” asked Jake, giving him an incredulous look. “It feels like—I mean, I can be an asshole for sure, but I think I must give you all a worse impression than I mean to.”

“No,” said Dwight, “That’s not what I meant. I just…It’s—I mean, it’s your name, and I—I do know who you are,” he hurried to add, looking worried Jake wouldn’t believe him, “I do, really, I promise, and I don’t want you to think it’s not important because I can’t fucking—”

“—Dwight,” Jake cut in, gently setting a hand on one of his shoulders, “It’s fine. So, who else’s name did you forget? Or am I the only one who…”

“No,” answered Dwight, closing his eyes and groaning unhappily.

Jake watched him. “Then…?”

“Everyone,” said Dwight forlornly, “Except Feng, for some reason.”

“Okay,” replied Jake slowly, studying the dismal, wretched look on his face. “Hey,” he prompted, gentling nudging his side, “Open your eyes.”

“Why?” asked Dwight, opening them, voice sounding beaten. “I can’t see anything anyway.”

Jake unzipped and reached into the pocket of the coat Dwight was using as a blanket and took out his broken glasses. “Here,” said Jake, starting to make a move to hand then to Dwight and then pausing, realizing that might not work so well with his current motor function.

Recognizing the shape, Dwight reached out a shaky hand and tried to take the pair, fingers successfully closing around half of the snapped glasses, and taking the left side frame closer to his face to get a look at, leaving Jake with the rest. “It’s empty. The glass is gone,” said Dwight, squinting at it.

“It’s probably still in the pocket,” replied Jake, feeling guilt for having not remembered to try and repair these earlier. There had been so much shit to deal with. “Hang on.”

In his lap, Dwight lowered his arm and let it rest on his chest and tried to watch Jake as he fiddled with the right half of the glasses frame, which still had its glass intact. Untying his bandanna from around his neck, Jake secured one end of the cloth to the broken nose bridge, and the other to the tip of the plastic temple that hooked behind the ear.

“Okay. Hang on,” said Jake, placing the glasses on the ground beside him, “I’m going to try to sit you up a little.

Gingerly, Jake hooked an arm under Dwight’s back and placed his other hand on his chest to steady him as he lifted him up. Dwight didn’t resist—just let himself be moved. Under his palm, Jake could feel Dwight’s skin—much warmer now than it had been, which was reassuring, but as he sat him up and the coat he’d been using for a blanket slipped off, Dwight looked small again, and breakable. Jake leaned his friend against his chest like it was the back of an easy chair and used one arm to keep him steady while with the other he picked up the coat.

“Might be easier if you just wear it,” offered Jake, holding it in front of Dwight.

“You don’t need it?” asked Dwight, shivering a little without a shirt, even this close to the fire.

Jake shook his head, and half-helped, half-moved Dwight forward, adjusting him to get his arms into the coat, and then zipping it up the front for him. _It’s too fucking big, but at least you’ll be warm,_ thought Jake, taking in the endearingly awkward sight of his friend huddled in his coat as he picked up the broken glasses.

“Here,” he said, holding the makeshift contraption out to Dwight.

“How do…I?” asked Dwight, taking it shakily in a hand and looking at the strange thing.

“Slip it over,” answered Jake. “It’ll be sort of like wearing an eye patch, but at least you’ll be able to see out of the other eye.”

“Thanks,” said Dwight awkwardly, trying to put the thing on. After watching him struggle for a second, Jake helped, and in a minute the bandana was tightened and the half glasses were held in place. “Ah, seeing,” said Dwight, trying to take it well and squinting through his right eye as it adjusted, “It would really be nice to be able to do that on my own.”

“So,” said Jake, ignoring the comment in favor of his previous task. He was about to continue, then paused, looking at what he could see of Dwight’s face with his friend practically in his lap. “You’re comfortable?”

“Yeah, I think so. Honestly, …Jake,” it took Dwight a second to remember the name again, but Jake did his utmost to act like he hadn’t caught that, “As much as my head hurts, you could probably lightly stab me and I wouldn’t notice.”

“Okay then,” replied Jake, shifting a little so his right arm held most of Dwight’s weight and his left was free to move. “There, by your feet, red hair, is Meg,” he said, indicating her. She’d passed out fast and was snoring a little, curled up like a dog by the fire next to Claudette, who was still barefoot, but wearing Quentin’s jacket over her tanktop. “And the girl with her is Claudette.”

“I know who they are,” said Dwight, sounding agitated, “Just their names.”

“I know,” said Jake calmingly, “Should I just point at them and say a name then?”

Dwight started to reply and then didn’t. He took a breath. “Sorry,” he said quietly after a second. “It just…I feel really useless, and really, really fucking stupid right now. I know I should just know this already. Without…trouble. It’s not like I don’t know them, I just…” He looked frustrated and miserable, and Jake could feel his heart rate pick up and his breathing get unsteady.

 _Hm. Okay, you feel bad about this. That’s stupid, but let me think._ Comforting others wasn’t really Jake’s forte, but he wanted to do it right. _Okay._ “The names you’re looking for for the ones who are awake right now are Laurie, Quentin, and Ace,” he said, indicating each in turn as he went. “Also, unrelated, and we haven’t seen him again yet, because it’s only been a few hours, but the Wraith agreed. Your idea was a good one.”

Dwight looked up at him in surprise. “My—which idea? Laurie, Quentin, Ace” he added to himself in a whisper. “Damn it, what kind of name is Quentin? That’s so hard.”

“Says the guy named ‘Dwight,’” ribbed Jake, unable to suppress a grin.

“Okay,” admitted Dwight, taking it like a man. Jake heard him quietly whisper “Quentin” to himself a few more times under his breath, trying to drill it in.

“The one Feng is using as a pillow is Nea, the big guy asleep on the log is David, and the new guy is Tapp, well,” Jake added after a pause, “David Tapp, but that’s too confusing for all of us, so the first David gets to keep his name and Tapp’s just Tapp.”

“Stop, please,” said Dwight, making a distressed sound, “You’re making it all worse.”

“Okay. Okay, sorry. Nea, David, Tapp,” Jake said again, more slowly, pointing as he went. “And then the girl over on our other side asleep by Laurie is Kate. Don’t even worry about last names. Nobody ever uses them anyway.”

Dwight made an affirmative noise, acknowledging the transfer of information, and looked over everyone around the fire, lips silently forming names as he went. “I think I have it,” he said, looking back at Jake. “For now,” he added, chagrined.

“Good. And your idea to make sure we have stuff we can say to get the Wraith back fast in case we lose him again now that he’s willing to help us was the one I meant,” Jake said, circling back to the earlier, unanswered question.

“Yeah?” asked Dwight, perking up a little. “You got something that will work?”

Jake nodded. “He’s gone now—with the Entity being a danger and all. But it sounded like it would work. I guess we’ll see. It’s a solid plan, though.”

Dwight started to nod thoughtfully and then winced at the motion and stopped. “He’s okay?” asked Dwight, looking up at Jake.

“Yeah—yeah, he’s fine,” Jake answered. “Little worse for the wear. The field medics did good, though.”

They sat in silence for a few seconds, both thinking their own separate issues over, watching the fire light, the faint crackle of embers and low tones of Ace and Quentin’s conversation the only real sounds in the evening air.

“We’re all okay?” Dwight asked after a minute.

“Better, I think,” answered Jake, “We have something to work towards now.”

The quiet returned and hung between them for a few seconds.

“I’m gonna be a problem,” Dwight said finally, face resigned and traced with dread. “Every trial. Until this gets better. If it does—”

“—It will,” Jake interrupted him. “And we’ll live.”

“I’ll be a walking death sentence for any team I’m part of, Jake,” said Dwight, pained, looking up at him and not ready to let this go so easily. “I know I’m moving my arms now, but even that’s so fucking hard, and I feel like I’m gonna drop any second. I can’t get my legs to move at all. I probably can’t even stand up on my own.”

“It’s been less than twenty-four hours and you’re already back to being able to stay awake and pick things up,” Jake argued, “That’s good. It’s big progress.”

“Maybe in a hospital,” contradicted Dwight, distressed, “But that’s not us. It’s like the end of _The Princess Bride_ and I’m supposed to be happy about a—”

“ _The Princess_ what?” asked Jake.

“You’re really hard to talk to, do you know that?” asked Dwight, seeing Jake’s expression—almost smug at being a problem—and smiling in spite of himself halfway through the sentence. “How are you and Meg friends?”

“We’re friends?” asked Jake, fighting down the urge to grin.

“This is why everyone thinks you’re an asshole,” said Dwight, smiling at him and getting one solid headshake out before the pain hit and he realized what a terrible idea that had been. “Ow. Fuck,” he said out loud, more for comfort than necessity, shakily bringing a hand to his forehead. “Next time you see me start to do that, please stop me.”

“Look,” said Jake, watching as his friend tried to take steady breaths, waiting for the pain to level out, “It’s gonna suck. You’re not wrong. But we’ve had worse. We’ll figure it out, and you’ll be back to normal in no time. Trust me.”

Dwight gave him a look that conveyed he knew that Jake couldn’t possibly know for sure that’s how things would go down, then relented and sighed, and leaned closer against Jake.

“Okay,” said Dwight quietly.

Propped up against him, Jake could feel a lot of the tension in Dwight’s body lessen as he took in the warmth and comfort and support of another person, and Jake looked over at him to watch, trying to get a read on his expression.

“And hey,” Dwight added after a second, turning his head just a little to look up into his face. “Thank you, for coming after us. We’d be dead if you hadn’t.”

“I couldn’t just let you die,” replied Jake. “Where would we be without a leader?”

Dwight laughed weakly and closed his eyes, resting the side of his head against Jake’s chest. “’With a different leader,” he answered, smiling.

They were so close that Jake could see Dwight’s breath fog in the air and feel his heartbeat level out and chest rise and fall more slowly as he started to drift off. Claudette had done her best, but there were still flecks of the Cannibal’s blood on the edge of his face and the bit of his collarbone Jake could see above the coat, along with some new bruises of his own. Hair disheveled, still wearing the stupid jury-rigged half glasses. A broken, tired, small mess.

“Dwight,” Jake said quietly.

“Mm?” asked Dwight, shifting a little and only half waking back up at the sound of his name, not opening his eyes.

 _Yeah._ Jake smiled to himself and let out a slow breath. “Never mind,” he whispered, reaching over and taking the half glasses off of his friend. Dwight stirred and opened his eyes at the touch, then closed them again as Jake gently set the mangled thing on the ground beside them. A problem for tomorrow’s Jake to fix.

“I’m glad you came back,” said Dwight, eyes still shut and voice heavy with sleep.

“Back?” asked Jake, glancing over at him.

“After you first met me and didn’t like me,” Dwight explained, words slurring a little. “You left and didn’t want anything to do with us, but you came back.”

 _I did, didn’t I?_ A group had seemed stupid at the time. Everyone was so new, they were usually a detriment in trials. Acting stupidly, running around, making too much noise, not able to focus on the goals.

“I’m glad you’re here,” said Dwight, breathing low and steady, worn out and barely conscious. He looked so rough, but he also looked almost happy, falling asleep like this. Maybe even content—peaceful.

“Yeah,” said Jake, watching him, “Me too.” He wrapped one of his arms around Dwight to help keep him warm and upright if he dozed off too, and propped his other up on his knee. Dwight was so wiped out from the day and the wound that it only took him a few seconds to pass out entirely, but Jake stayed up, watching him sleep, thinking. Time passed, and as he thought through next steps and current situations, first Ace, and then Laurie fell asleep, until it was just him and Quentin, who was lost in writing something in the journal he kept. It was so quiet and still, it was almost like being alone, camping out in a real wood under a night sky. Nothing but yourself to talk to.

That was nice, and Jake liked it. He loved solitude. To a point. Only recently had he realized that last part, realized that even back home there had been things he had missed, things he had found out about too little, too late. Once he was already lost himself. And here?

 _It’s probably for the best. Some things just wouldn’t ever work out,_ thought Jake, feeling Dwight breathe against him, watching hints of expressions flicker across his face as he slept, and the way the wind moved in his hair. There were a lot of kinds of people in the world, and this was one that Jake wasn’t. He’d chosen that—to be someone who kept too far away from most things to be a part of them, and he liked it. _Still,_ thought Jake, enjoying the pressure of someone’s head against his chest and the closeness of shared body heat. He looked over Dwight’s face for a moment, a faint smile on his lips, then gently leaned over and kissed the top of Dwight’s head. _You get better,_ he thought, watching his friend’s face as he drew back, _Then we work on finding a way out. That’s plenty._

Readjusting himself a little, Jake finally closed his own eyes and let himself start to drift off. He had almost made it too, when he felt Dwight’s body shift under his arm, and he opened his eyes to see little embers crackling their way up and down his friend’s arms and legs.

 _Oh fuck,_ thought Jake, desperately hoping to look down and see his own limbs doing the same. They weren’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Traumatic brain injuries are real pieces of work. While complete recovery from a mild injury is likely, the temporary after effects aren't much fun and often include exhaustion, depression, irritability, headaches, anxiety, light sensitivity, trouble concentrating, and memory problems--especially over specific information like phone numbers and names, even if you can remember everything associated with the word you can't remember (like how it's not unusual for you to spend fifteen minutes trying to remember the name of a favorite actor, only to suddenly have it occur once you stopped thinking about it. Those are already pieces of declarative memory that are way harder for people to retrieve, so it's a similar effect turned up to eleven).
> 
> Thank you all for reading and commenting. I hope you enjoy a chapter that's a little bit more of a break (at least for the most part). The next one should be up pretty shortly too--tomorrow or Tuesday. I really like Dwight and Jake's characters, and haven't had as much on-screen time for their relationship as I would like, so I really enjoyed getting to do this. Your feedback all really means a lot, as does getting to have people read the story, so thank you again.


	28. Family Matters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In his current condition, Dwight trials are a nightmare for him and everyone else, but this time it's Laurie trouble is here for.

 

There had been an offering. Laurie felt it in the air. Someone had burned the key, and they were going to Haddonfield.

She felt that before she was even truly awake, like a murky element of her dream, and then she was entirely awake all at once, jerking upright just in time to see herself vanishing in front of the campfire, and she felt for the sharp stone she’d had in her pocket and with a slight reassurance felt its presence there.

That was all she had time for, and then she was gone. And then she was home.

 _Haddonfield. Again._ Her own town, her own streets. Jack o'lanterns she’d passed on the way to school.

She materialized next to David, Ace a few feet further off but within sight. _That’s weird,_ she thought. Starting near someone wasn’t so odd, but near two? _Unless._

They’d been burning shrouds whenever they could if Dwight got drawn for a trial, so the whole group could start together and work out a strategy for about four days now—ever since the first trial he’d been in after getting wounded. It had been the Pig, and it had been hell. Feng, Ace, Dwight, and Meg. Feng had made it out, barely, because unlike the exit gates, which were a death trap with the Pig, whatever the black lock was made out of unlocked the beartrap and shorted it the second you jumped in. No one else had been so lucky. It had been bad, even for a Pig trial, which were always their own kind of hell. She’d found Dwight fast, realized he was broken, and loved it. Setting off generators was always a decision that carried weight in a Pig trial, but at least usually you knew the other person had a shot. A fair gamble of making it to the right trap to find a key in time. It wasn’t usually pulling the trigger yourself, on one of the worst kinds of death any of them had been through. But on a teammate you knew couldn’t even really crawl? The others had tried to save him, and fallen one by one. It had been a long, long trial, even after, and the only reason there had been a hatch for Feng to luck into at all was because eventually the Pig had lit a second gen herself, to force her own reverse beartraps, so she could watch.

No one had wanted to go through what had happened that night again.

 _Shit,_ Laurie realized, looking for a fourth again, but this time somewhere on the ground.

“Dwight?” she mouthed, stealing over to David. He nodded. “The Entity really hates us, huh?” she whispered. It wouldn’t be fair to say it had been non-stop, but the poor guy had been getting way more than his fair share of trials, and with some of the worst possible Killers, too. It was a shit show for them all. They’d been getting better—they’d had to, to find a way to manage. Helping him find hiding places and rotating out who helped him, since he couldn’t walk on his own.

The one mercy was that, of all the people for this to happen to, Dwight was probably actually the best choice for them. He was smaller than a lot of them and didn’t weigh as much as most of the guys, so he was easier to carry, and most of the weird abilities he’d developed since coming here boosted their own, so even if his function was currently more backpack than teammate, he was like a backpack that contained a lot of shots of espresso and workout jams. In ways that were worth noting, he could still help. The current strategy basically revolved around returning to an earlier team strategy, where the best at running interference made as much noise as they could and drew chases out for as long as possible while the others worked—now with the tacked on addition that while that happened, whoever was the physically strongest member of the trial would carry Dwight around from hiding place to hiding place while they worked. If the chase went well enough for whoever ran interference, Dwight would sometimes (as often as he could argue them down) help on gens, since he could use his arms decently enough for that.

The whole thing was driving him crazy though, and she could understand why. Laurie would have hated feeling helpless or useless, and Dwight was stuck as both over and over again—at least compared to any other fourth a group could have had, and they all knew he hated it.

Still, they’d been compensating as best they could, and they’d been getting better. Dwight had even made it through two trials himself now.

To her right, Laurie saw Ace reappear, half carrying Dwight, and she and David stole over.

“Sorry ahead of time,” whispered Dwight, looking like someone who was absolutely miserable and trying to put a good face on, but really bad at that.

David shrugged the apology off with an _it’s no bother_ hand motion, then glanced at the others. “Am I carryin’ or interference?”

“Carry,” said Laurie. “You’ll be fastest with him, so take Dwight and hit gens, and I’ll run interference. Ace, gens for now, and you switch off if something goes wrong?”

“Are ya sure about that?” asked David, looking a little concerned.

“Is there a problem with it?” asked Laurie, surprised. It had only seemed logical.

“It’s Haddonfield,” whispered David, “Again.”

“…Again?” she asked, interpretations of that statement occurring, but not wanting to jump to any one of them without confirmation.

“We’ve gotten it I think eight times already, and that’s just me,” replied Dwight. “It’s the Shape.”

 _Just because it’s Haddonfield? I run into him everywhere, and the Nightmare in Autohaven, so._ “How can you be sure—” started Laurie.

“—Someone burned a key,” Dwight answered before she’d finished asking, “He’s been doing that. Every match anyone’s had for weeks. He’s been pulling Haddonfield non-stop.”

 _What?_ “Nobody…told me?” said Laurie haltingly. _Why would he…?_

“Were we supposed to?” asked Dwight as Ace awkwardly passed him off to David.

“Didja need to know?” agreed David in undertones, slinging one of Dwight’s arms over his shoulder, “It’s no your fault if the Shape’s picking the same location all tha time.”

“The Nightmare likes to draw Badham Preschool. We all assumed it was some kind of sick attachment to the place he has real life memories of killing people,” added Dwight.

“It just seemed like more for you to worry about that you didn’t need to,” explained Ace quickly, voice hushed, “Plus, coming to you every time the Shape does something weird seems uncalled for and a little bit attributive.”

“Right, okay,” answered Laurie, trying to shake off feeling a little betrayed, because that made sense, “I think I’ll still be okay though. Since it’s him, I can probably go even longer than I can normally run a stall. …Is there anything else I should know?” she added after a second.

“No,” answered Dwight, “He’s been maybe a little weird, but not in any way I can put my finger on.”

The other two nodded.

“Okay,” said Laurie, “Then the plan’s good?”

“Hang on,” said Ace, putting a hand on her shoulder, “I know you can do it, but let me take this one. You’re always one of the ones who has to run, and you could use a break from it. Especially because we know how he is, and once he sees you, you won’t get one. If I spin out real fast we can always trade off.”

“I’ll be fine,” protested Laurie.

“Humor me?” said Ace, giving her a petitioning look, hand still on her shoulder.

“I,” she glanced at David and Dwight, then back at Ace. “Fine,” she said, sighing, “We’ve taken too much time as is. Let’s go. But—don’t die, or I’ll never let you switch with me again, Ace.”

He put up his hands. “Point taken. I’ll do my best.”

They turned and split then, Ace heading for the far end of one street, the others heading far the opposite end of the area, Laurie peeling off halfway to check inside one of the houses for a generator to work on.

 _Why do you keep burning for Haddonfield?_ thought Laurie, taking a quick glance around in case she could pick up his aura as she slipped into the house. She couldn’t though. _Where are you?_

She hadn’t been in a trial with the Shape since she’d tried to get him to give up with her. And that was…off—there were no two ways about it. _Eight trials with him that Dwight’s been in? Twelve of us, others we don’t know. That’s…Got to be something like thirty, at least, and never me?_ It had to have been intentional. So why? Why had it never been her. Before that, she’d gotten him so many times, sometimes back to back—it had been wearing her down. And then nothing?

“How many keys did you burn,” she whispered to herself, fingers tracing the faded wallpaper she knew well after so many trials.

 _I was right, wasn’t I?_ thought Laurie, confirming there was no generator downstairs and creeping up the staircase to check the vacant rooms for a generator, _If I hadn’t messed up at the last second, it would have worked. We could have been done with this for real, and it’s keeping you away from me because it doesn’t want to lose us. Or…probably doesn’t want to lose you._

Her second guess paid off—top floor, room on the left, a one person generator, the shitty kind—stuck in a thin room with only one side reachable. Laurie knelt beside it and started to work, glancing behind herself every so often as she did, waiting for him to show up. _But why do you keep burning keys for Haddonfield?_ she asked herself again, agitated. _Ow—shit._

She had moved a cable wrong, shocking herself on a live wire and shook the hand reflexively in response to the pain. _At least it was my hand, and not the generator,_ she thought. Any pain was better than backfiring a gen and drawing attention.

It was harder this time to pay attention—to focus—than it had been in any trial in ages. So much was going on, and changing. Nobody had really tried to act on anything yet, but they’d been talking a lot—about the other killers, about trying to find out if any of them were like Philip. There were so many things they knew to the contrary of that possibility that it hadn’t taken priority, but it still hung around in the air, even when ideas weren’t being bounced around—it was the thought always just beneath the surface. _It isn’t fair,_ thought Laurie, distressed. _All of this time, all the years I’ve been stuck here, and we finally have a reason to think things might change. But it’s still not you._ Out of every idea someone had pitched, there hadn’t been one about the Shape. And that made sense—they were right, and he hadn’t been the only one. But it still hurt—not because no one even considered it, but because they were right not to. It just hurt that even with the before unimaginable possibility of getting through to some of the killers here, her own family was still lost. And there was no new revelation to change that. And she knew, deep down, that there never would be.

What upset her maybe more was that she’d thought a couple of times about trying anyway, despite how futile she knew it was, and that was weak and stupid and it made her disappointed in and angry with herself, and it wasn’t something she could ever talk to anyone else about. So it just sat in her chest, rotting.

Loneliness. An illogical belief that if things could change, somehow all the suffering and the time and the deaths wouldn’t have been a waste. Something could be salvageable. Something could be saved.

 _That’s stupid,_ she told herself, feeling the now all too familiar ache in her chest. _Why though?_ she thought again, hands settling into the familiar rhythm of repairing a generator. _Why do you keep burning offerings for Haddonfield? You’ve never done that before._ But she’d known; the thought had been hovering about, waiting to be acknowledged ever since she’d learned he had been doing it. _It’s because you’re looking for me, aren’t you?_ thought Laurie, her heart sinking a little at the idea, _And you don’t know how else to go about it._

There was breathing behind her then and she froze, suddenly very aware of how trapped she was here. Only one way out. How had she let him get so close? The breathing was loud through the mask, and coming from right behind her—almost above. Slowly, dreading it, she tilted her head back and looked up.

It was him.

The Shape, the boogeyman, her older brother. He tilted his head and looked down, knife up and readied at his side.

 _Damn it._ Caught against the gen and out of space to move pinned between it and him, she turned carefully until her back was pressed up against it. He loomed over her, watching her, unmoving.

“Michael?” she asked, mind blanking on what to do with _run_ not an option.

At his name, he tilted his head to look at her for a second, then slowly turned his head to look over his shoulder. Turning back to her, he reached down suddenly and grabbed her by the collar. Laurie screamed and tried to tug herself free, but he lifted her up in one easy motion like she weighed nothing at all and dragged her close to him until they were only inches apart.

_What—he can’t—there’s no permission been given to kill us himself this time—we’d feel it, and it’s way too soon, there’s no way he’s already—_

The Shape let go of her collar and the second he wasn’t holding her in place, the panic rocketing through her took over and she instinctively tried to take a step back to get some distance. He didn’t like that, and just as quick moved sideways, shot one arm out with the knife to block her getting past him, and with his other hand grabbed her and pushed her up against the wall, closing the distance again and pinning her there so she couldn’t move away.

Breaths coming in quick with the fear of impending death at the hands of the kitchen knife that had killed her so many times before, Laurie tried to get at the sharp stone in her pocket.

As she did, the Shape grabbed her hand and brought it up, and for a second she thought in horror that he’d realized what she’d been going to do, but then he tilted the knife in his hand and carefully positioned it over her heart and placed her hand on the back of it under his own, and it clicked.

 _You still want to do it,_ she thought, realization setting in with a horrible finality. _That’s what all this is about. All of it._

“Michael, wait,” she said, grabbing his hands and what she could of the knife with her other hand too. “Wait, I can’t.”

He reacted to that. She couldn’t tell how, exactly, but his head moved quickly behind the mask, and he turned his focus away from the knife to look at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said desperately, feeling the tension and strength in his arms and knowing how fast that blade was going to plunge into her chest any second. _Try, as long as you can. He won’t stop, but slow him down._ “It won’t work now—I’m not ready. There are people here who need me, and I can’t go with you like this until that’s over, I’m sorry, I know I said—”

His shoulders tensed, and she felt the movement before it happened. Less than a second to try and do anything, and then he drove the knife forward with all his strength, and realizing there was nothing she could do to hold him back, Laurie turned as much as she could, letting the blade sink into her shoulder wide to the left of its intended target in her heart. The pain stabbed through her and shot down her arm and chest, and she screamed as the blade passed clean through her and imbedded into the wall behind, sending ripples of agony tearing through the left side of her body.

“Please,” she gasped out, “I didn’t lie to you—I won’t just give up on it and leave you here like this, I just can’t do it yet!”

Her brother tore the knife free of the wall and her shoulder and she fell forward, crying out in pain as her blood spattered against the wall and wood floor and him, barely managing to catch herself with an arm.

The second she was free, she tried to drag herself up and dash past him, but as she pulled herself up and tried for the door, she heard him move behind her and felt the blade sink into her back as he swung it, carving a long path from shoulder to waist, and she fell forward onto the floor, pain digging through her back and making it hard to think. Struggling with all her might to get back up again she began crawling towards the door, and she heard his feet turn and come after her. Slow, in no rush, unstoppable, watching her try and make the doorway. _No, no, no, no. Not like this—I—_

She heard a foot land beside her, and rolled over onto her back so she was looking up at him. Her brother towered above her, knife raised.

“Michael, please,” she begged, fumbling with her right hand for the stone in her pocket, “Don’t.”

It was like he hadn’t even heard her. Methodical and unrelenting, he stooped and reached down, grabbing her by the shirt again, and pulling her up towards him. _Are you angry? I didn’t know you could get angry,_ she thought, horrified _._ For anyone else it would have been nothing—the motions were still slow, precise, but for him it seemed almost like it.

“Michael,” she tried again, voice pleading, her fingers finally closing around the sharpened stone, “Stop! Please—”

The knife came quick and lodged itself in her chest, and she looked down at it, her own hand with the stone drawn back for a stab at his neck going slack as the knife dug in and her strength ebbed with it and the will to fight left her. _Damn it,_ she thought, feeling no pain suddenly, just a dull ache in her chest, and very cold. She let go of the rock and heard it clink against the floor. He heard the sound and looked at it, and then her, close enough she could barely see his eyes behind the shadow of the mask.

“It won’t get you what you want,” she whispered, reaching a hand out towards his face, “I’ll just keep coming back.” He watched her, eyes fixed, unmoving, one hand still on the hilt of the knife, the other holding her up by her shirt. Shakily, Laurie moved her fingers up and let them dig in and wrap themselves around the hair on the white latex thing he wore and then, with all the force she could manage, she tore it off.

He stared down at her in disbelief for just half a second, like he was so surprised by the act he was on a time delay, and then he let go of the knife and her and with both hands grabbed at it as she fell against the floor, feverously trying to get it back.

Laurie could already feel herself dying, and she had nothing to lose, so she tried to hang onto it, holding it against her chest and gripping it with both hands, fingers digging into the white latex as he tried to rip it out of her grasp. He was far stronger than her—probably stronger than anyone, but she wasn’t holding onto the mask with her strength, she was holding onto it with her will to not let go, and he couldn’t get it back.

She had seen him before. When she was little. She remembered that—him in a white room. Everything had been white in the whole building, and there had been people there that didn’t want her to see him. She’d known who he was then, and he’d remembered her. But that had been so long ago. Faint. And then, she’d seen him one other time—the night he’d tried to kill her. For just a moment, she’d ripped off the mask and he’d stopped attacking her to put it back on like he needed it to breathe. But she hadn’t really looked at him then. She’d been staring in shock at the fact that there was a person at all under that mask, not at his face. So, this was the first time, in forty years, that she’d ever really gotten a look at him.

He was younger than she thought—she should have known that, because he hadn’t been that much older than her, but she’d always seen the figure in the night stalking her and thought of him as something very removed from another young adult. A little bit of a scar at his left eye where she’d gotten him with a hanger. Long blonde hair, longer than the mask’s, and the same color as her own, with the same blue eyes. _Why do you want this so much,_ she thought, watching his almost panicked expression as he struggled with her, _It’s just a mask._

Finally, Laurie lost, and he tore the mask out of her hands and moved back, away from her, like he was afraid she’d somehow get it again, all the while almost fumbling in his effort to put it back on as quickly as possible.

Laurie watched him, feeling herself get colder and colder as her blood pooled around her and soaked into her shirt. “It’s too late,” she said smiling faintly as he fought to get the mask back in place, “I saw what you really look like.”

The Shape let the mask settle, and he turned his head to look at her, the white of the latex now mostly stained dark red in her blood. Slowly, and almost carefully this time, he knelt over her to reach for his knife.

“You look like me,” said Laurie, watching him, struggling to keep her eyes open.

He paused, hand on the hilt of the knife, and looked at her again.

She reached out towards him again and he leaned away, wary of another bid for his mask, and her bloody hand came to rest weakly on his shoulder. She noticed in a perplexed, confusing way through the blood loss that his jumpsuit was torn over the shoulder. It had never been torn before—his stupid blue outfit had always somehow been almost spotless, no matter how many people he killed. The skin underneath was rough—scarred, and as she touched it, he recoiled from her like she’d cut him.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, letting the arm the arm which was too heavy to keep up anymore drop, and blinking to try and focus her vision on him as she felt herself getting weaker and weaker.

Her brother was watching her, tense, but he didn’t give any kind of response. Just slowly moved back over her and reached out to take his knife again. Laurie knew she didn’t have long either way, but that she would be dead almost the second he pulled it out. _Shit. That part will probably hurt. Even if I don’t feel anything right now._ The slow tear of something sharp being removed form an organ was indescribable, and she feared the emptiness it left.

“I wish I…didn’t have to be so scared of you…” Laurie managed, breaths coming in shallow as his fingers closed around the hilt and he started to pull, “…Since you’re…my big brother…”

He went rigid, and slowly turned his head. Behind the mask, she could feel his eyes trained on her face.

She coughed, and blood came up. The motion didn’t hurt, but she felt it in her chest, things cutting against the knife, and it scared her in spite of how many times she had felt this happen. Her brother tilted his head and leaned over, looking down at the blood.

“Look what you did you stupid bastard,” she said weakly, coughing again and feeling the tearing in her chest and feeling liquid drip down the side of her lips. “You killed me. Again. …You…jerk…brother.” She tried to breathe, but that was steadily getting too hard to do. “…I wish…” Laurie said shakily, voice faint and thin, finding it harder and harder to focus. “You look like me,” she said again, looking up at him, unable to remember what she’d been going to say she wished. “You look better without the mask, Michael. Not as…scary...”

The cold and the dull aching weakness slowly passed through her, and Laurie couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore, and as they shut, she started to fade in and out, her hearing becoming muffled. Nothing easy to understand except the thud of her heartbeat as it slowed and came to a stop. Faintly, she felt something poke her, but she didn’t have the strength to respond.

A half second later, she woke up with a gasp by the fire, hand going instinctively to her chest, only to find she was fine.

 _Fuck,_ she thought, collapsing back against the grass and thinking about everything that had just happened to her. _What am I supposed to do? What even can I?_ “Bastard,” she whispered to herself, closing her eyes.

_You always want so badly to kill me, when I never did a thing to you. It isn’t fair._

_Although,_ she thought unhappily after a second, _Maybe this time I did._

“You okay?” asked Claudette, pausing from trying to sew something together a few feet away to look over at her in concern, since she was still laying in the grass, unmoving.

Laurie nodded wordlessly and stood up, dusting herself off. It was pretty sparse at the campfire. No one else was back from her trial yet, and Feng and Nea were off somewhere together. Jake and Kate were practice fighting a few yards off—something they’d taken to doing ever since the rescue mission for Dwight and Claudette, and were getting kind of impressively good at. She’d joined in a decent handful of times herself, as had a few of the others, especially Quentin and David, but no one with as much dedication as those two. Over on the far side of the campfire, Quentin and Meg were bent over a book together, talking animatedly about something. Jake had stopped fighting to glance over when she first arrived, but now Claudette was really the only person paying her any mind.

“You’ve been talking about trying to make wine out of dandelions, right?” she asked, walking over to Claudette and crouching beside her.

“Well, yeah, but it’s not that simple. You need yeast to make wine, and that’s not as easy as I thought here,” replied Claudette, scooting over a little to make room for her. “I’ve tried a couple of times, but the best one I’ve made so far tastes terrible, because my supplies aren’t ideal and we’re also pretty short on anything to use as sweetener and dandelions are very bitter. Plus,” she added conspiratorially, “It did occur to me that if I make alcohol, we really might all become alcoholics. And coffee’s so much easier—”

“Is it alcoholic?” asked Laurie, “The one you made that tastes terrible?”

“Yeah, but you don’t want it,” Claudette said, “It’s very bad.”

Laurie held out her hand.

“Are you sure?” asked Claudette, looking like she really didn’t want to give it to her.

“I just got killed by my brother again,” said Laurie, hand still held out.

“Your brother?” repeated Claudette, taken aback.

 _Damn it. For alcohol…? Well, I already did I guess, so._ “The Shape’s my brother,” Laurie replied quietly, “But you can never tell anyone that. And I mean no one. Ever.”

“Oh my god, Laurie,” said Claudette quickly, dropping her needle and thread to dig through a repurposed medkit beside her, coming back up with a medium sized vial of something brownish. “I’m so sorry—you never said—uh, do you—do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” said Laurie, taking the vial and downing a huge swig, immediately gagging and coughing on the vile stuff. “Oh, god,” she managed between coughs, “you weren’t kidding.”

Claudette shook her head. “I’m sorry, it’s really awful.”

“I still want it, though,” said Laurie, closing her fingers around it.

“You sure you don’t? You know…at all?” Claudette asked again, watching as Laurie tried to force more of the liquid down. “I won’t tell anybody—not even Dwight, I promise.”

“It wouldn’t help,” replied Laurie, clearing her throat in the hopes somehow that might get rid of some of the taste. Claudette dug into the kit again and passed her a handful of leaves. “What’s this?” she asked, looking from the leaves to Claudette.

“Mint,” said Claudette, “To get rid of the taste. A little.”

Laurie took the plant appreciatively and chewed on some of it. Mint mixed with the abhorrent half-wine was still pretty gross, but somehow better than the drink by itself.

“You never told anyone?” Claudette asked, watching her alternately try to hold down the disgusting brown fluid and numb the suffering with the mint.

Laurie took a big gulp of the liquid and managed not to cough this time. “Would you?”

“I-I don’t know,” answered Claudette, looking introspective and still a little shook, “Yeah, I think so. Or, maybe it would depend. How did he…? –I’m sorry, you said you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“It’s fine,” said Laurie dismissively, setting down the bottle for a second and moving to lean against the log Claudette was sitting on.

Claudette looked for a second like she was going to say something, then she just slid down beside Laurie against the log. They sat together for a minute in companionable silence.

“Stuff like this just doesn’t ever get better, does it?” asked Laurie after a second, staring past the fire at the fight between Jake and Kate.

Glancing over at her, Claudette took a second to try to read her expression before answering. “You mean the…brother, or…”

“I don’t even know,” said Laurie, voice tired, “I guess that—all of it. It’s not like we were close; I barely knew him. But.”

Claudette waited a second for her to finish, and when she didn’t just said, “Yeah,” quietly in agreement with the unspoken point.

“Sometimes family is just bad, and it doesn’t really get better. Not even in movies,” Laurie added.

“Well, Darth Vader,” Claudette started, trying to think of something positive and decade-relevant to say, and then her eyes got big.

“What?” asked Laurie, turning to look at her.

“Nothing! I’m sorry—I forgot you haven’t—Meg promised to strangle us if we spoiled Star Wars for you,” she hurried.

“Okay,” said Laurie slowly, trying to unpack what that could possibly mean from her memories of _Star Wars: Episode 1._

“Look, you’re right,” Claudette said, trying to recover, “Sometimes people—even family. They’re just bad. You can’t change it, but I get that it’s hard to make people mean nothing to you when it’s family. It’s…complicated, even when it shouldn’t be. But that’s fair. It’s normal.”

“Yeah?” asked Laurie, glancing away from the bottle of mostly gone wine she’d been toying with to look at Claudette, a little relieved. “I know it’s fucked up, and it doesn’t make sense.”

“It does,” Claudette disagreed, shaking her head. “I get why you didn’t want to tell anyone—it’s kind of private stuff. And it has to be rough.”

Laurie didn’t like feeling like she might be being pitied, so that made her uncomfortable, but she tried to shake it off. She shrugged. “It’s rough all over.”

“Is there…anything good about him?” Claudette asked after a second.

Laurie looked past her, into the fire, sorting through any memory of her brother she had. There were so few of them. “I don’t know,” she said finally, still watching the fire, “I barely know him. Barely ever knew him.”

“You want to try to find out?” Claudette asked, studying her.

Laurie shook her head. “That’s stupid. He—” she stopped, wondering how much she really wanted to tell. She’d probably overshared way more than she had ever meant to already, but once you get going at that it can be hard to stop. Especially when you haven’t overshared anything in forty years. There’s a lot to unpack.

Beside her, Claudette waited patiently, knees tucked up to her chest.

“He’s killed a lot of people,” Laurie continued after a second, “Including a lot of people I cared about, and our sister. For no reason at all. And he’s dead set on getting me too—I think it’s the only thing he actually cares about.”

“You don’t know why?” asked Claudette, looking an odd mix of sympathetic and mortified.

Laurie shook her head again. “No. He just…does. I was a baby when I knew him. He got locked up when he was really small too—I don’t know…six…eight? He’s been gone in an institution the rest of my life, until the night I came here. I went to see him maybe three times, when I was really little, but that’s it.”

“Jesus, I’m so sorry,” said Claudette softly, thinking that over. After a second her eyes widened, and her head shot back to look at Laurie. “Wait, he’s only a little older than you? I thought he was like—I don’t know, forty!”

“Yeah,” said Laurie, “I knew that, but somehow I kinda thought the same thing too.”

“Wow,” said Claudette, taking that all in. She got quiet for a second. “Is there anything I can do? To help?” she asked finally, looking over at Laurie.

“Well, not tell anyone,” said Laurie, downing the rest of the horrible vial of semi-wine and choking on it. “God that’s vile. But I think I’m tipsy now, so worth it.” She handed the empty container over, and Claudette took it carefully.  “I don’t know, Claudette,” she added after a second, looking at the smaller girl, “But thank you. I haven’t told anyone any of that in…ever. So. That and I think the alcohol, make me feel a little better. Thanks.”

Claudette nodded, and Laurie got up to leave. She wasn’t really sure where—she didn’t ever _go_ that far. It just seemed like it would be awkward to stay after ending the conversation. _Wait—I could get a new rock, for trials to replace the one I lost,_ she thought, knowing full well she already had a collection saved at the campfire. Still, it didn’t hurt to build up on that, and she had grown to kind of enjoy selecting pointy objects for her collection. With a goal in mind, she started for the woods.

“Hey, Laurie,” Claudette called after her. Laurie paused and looked back, and her friend lowered her tone to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard. “If you ever want to try—just to know for sure. I’d help you. If there’s any way I can. Even if it doesn’t work out, if you thought some kind of closure…?”

Laurie nodded. “Thanks. I think for now I just want to be drunk. And sad. But, I’ll think on it.”

She turned to go, and Claudette picked back up her sewing.

 _What would I even try?_ thought Laurie, _That I haven’t?_ Still, the thought ate at her a little bit. She knew, like she had always known, that there was no way things with him and her wouldn’t end up with one of them dead. But it didn’t hurt to wish it wasn’t that way, or imagine it, did it? —With any of her family, or her old life. Laurie wondered what kind of person her older sister had been. If they would have enjoyed the same books, the same music. She couldn’t even remember what she had looked like. That made her angry, and sad, and confused—all feelings she was very used to feeling. _Why, Michael? Why did you have to ruin all three of our lives? What did we ever do to you? Why couldn’t you be different?_

Maybe it did hurt to entertain things that would never happen. _Focus on the now,_ Laurie told herself, trying hard to shake the idea of having had an older sister to ask about dates, and book series, and her take on philosophy class. She had never had anyone who liked to do those last two with her, and all her friends usually did with the first one was make fun of her.

 _Stop that. You had a bad day; you’ll have more. Think of something better,_ she told herself, stooping just inside the woods to inspect a few pebbles, finding an oddly familiar comfort in the simple prospect of finding new rocks that she could use to defend herself,  _Meg and Quentin have been working hard on coming up with a way to kill the Nightmare. You’re good at fighting. Focus on that._

That, at least, was a tempting prospect, so she did. At least, as long and as much as she could, thoughts always hovering in the back of her mind, wanting to drift back to things she wished she could erase. On the plus side, it was really, really nice to be drunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Laurie really has a lot of shit to deal with. I don't know how anyone could be expected to handle finding out your brother killed your older sister when you were two and he was six and she was a teen, and that then your parents died and you were adopted and not told the truth, and he went to an institution where he was locked up for the next fifteen years of his life with basically just his one psychiatrist for contact, before breaking out at age 21 to come try to find and kill you, his last living family, and now he's very single-minded and virtually impossible to kill. There's just. A lot to unpack there. And that's also sort of only the very biggest, hardest facts upfront. That's so much not even touched on.  
> Unrelated, but it also astounds me every time I look at the Haddonfield maps in the Entity's realm that it seems to know picture frames need to have pictures in them, but its idea of good interior decorating is to put creepy photos of other killer realms in the frames. Just...why, Entity?
> 
> Thank you all again for reading, and for the feedback. I'm glad people liked the Jake chapter, and having a bit of a break. There's an odd mix of some more break-type chapters and a lot of action coming up, so stay tuned. The support really means a lot to me, so thank you again!


	29. Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Wraith comes back.

_I am the last man standing._

_I suppose that is not true in its entirety; in ways, two of us remain. Although my last living friend is no longer himself. He has become a shell, broken, filled with something else. Something that no longer bears a trace of what once was human._

_It is rare, but sometimes still I see him pass, in the flickering light of a generator, or as an outline passing through a field of corn, a lengthening shadow deep inside this darkened forest, a silhouette against the empty broken bodies of rows and rows of cars, and I long to reach out to him—to touch him, to say something, to risk everything for the chance I might find the person I knew again, deep beneath the monster. Yet, I never do. I stay my hand and hide in the shadows until he has passed and is once again lost to the darkness. I know that if I ever were to seek him, I too would find my final end in this place. No matter how much I wish to ignore sense at those times, I choose instead to honor the last request from a friend, the only one I could fulfil. I must always let him disappear again._

_I have been here a long time. Longer, I think sometimes, than anyone. Even the beasts. I used to wander, the only purpose allowing me to keep living in this nightmare a hunt for knowledge, for understanding. I clung, alone, to my pathetic attempts to understand this place and the things living here. Then came people, and with them hope, companionship, an easing of the pain, and perhaps strongest of all, a sense of purpose. But that is long since gone. And now? Now I am in what I believe is the last era of my journey, but things are changing yet again._

_While I may be the last, I am not alone._

_There are others. I find them again and again. Sometimes I think I am meant to, other times I know not one of us is important enough to the ancient evil that keeps us imprisoned here as to be so carefully strung along. And yet, more come. The Entity grows stronger with them, bringing itself more killers, more victims. These survivors I sometimes speak to, but those times have been few and almost accidental. I am separated. Even when I chance into one, more often than not I avoid them now. I do not wish to know names or remember faces. Long ago, I used to wonder if we would not be better off together than alone, and I cannot say I do not still long for human contact, but I know the truth now. I know we can indeed come together, but there is in that too high a price to it for me to pay again. I have my own ghosts already, and I could not heft the weight of another to bring with me._

_This place was designed with a singular purpose: to feed off of souls. Individual human lives are unimportant, as are choices, and hopes, and dreams. We all mean nothing. We pass, fleeting, suffering, trying to find purpose in our short time, and then we die, and are forgotten. I have found the hard way that hoping is a dangerous thing, and the price of its toll too high for me to again give. Yet, I can not give up. Despair is the one thing in this world worse than hoping, and which of those two evils to select the only real choice given us here._

_So I continue. I have no choice in that now. I have a responsibility that I cannot shake, and one which I chose for myself freely. Trusting in others is a gift, but it is also a risk, as is working together. The people you meet may have the strength you do not, and carry you to safety, or you may end up alone, responsible instead for the last piece of their dream. A task you could never fulfill. But I cannot truly regret that in and of itself, merely mourn that it is the nature of this world. A friend I once had here used to call me ‘chronicler,’ and speak of my scribblings as if they had such weight, such meaning, and purpose. There was such conviction in those words that I believed in them back then, when perhaps I should not, but I think they have finally become the truth, now that he is gone. With loss I have been given a new purpose, a borrowed strength and meaning to hold to. Now the record I keep is all that remains. Originally, it was simply a collection of scattered knowledge, but in these last days it has become something much more._

_I know now that we were foolish. I have always been so, particularly—I who sought this place out, thinking I could solve it like a puzzle. There is no way to kill this monster; there is no way to escape. No justice, and no peace. Perhaps only one of those has ever been a justifiable goal anyway, for it may be that the desire to escape has always been wrong. In ways, fool he was, Vigo was right, and I cannot fault him for his mistakes. To destroy this place is the only ending that would not perhaps have made those of us trapped here the villains at the end of our story. To escape, leaving others behind, after the horrors we have seen? Even if all of us could have made it out together, would our hands not be drenched in blood knowing it would find new sacrifices to take our places? Is not the decision to live also the choice to kill another? Could we have ever deserved to live, to even die in peace, if we were to escape this hell?_

_I do not know the answer._

_But that is no longer my burden. What has fallen to me is perhaps too fitting, but in it I take some small comfort. I have been here a long time. Longer, perhaps, than anyone. I am the last one standing, the chronicler, and I hold in my memories the last record of the people who were. I cannot give up, because to do so would be a betrayal. I no longer have the strength to meet the survivors who share my fate here and forge new paths; I already carry in my heart as many names as I am able, but I do have the will to leave them what I can. And I do._

_These new survivors I see continue to impress me, and I have what is almost a new hope, in an odd way. Not a hope in myself, but the faint belief that perhaps someday there will be someone else will walk in the footsteps we have carved out for them and be able to go on past what those who came before have been able to accomplish. The next generation of survivors may find a different way. I pray so, though long since the notion of prayer has lost all meaning. We know here we are utterly forsaken._

_Through all of this, I do not regret the choices I have made. I treasure the people I had and the time I was given, though I will never forgive their ends, nor forget. Those I have lost were precious to me, and all that they dreamed falls to me now. I know my limitations, my own weakness; I cannot finish their stories for them, but I do not give in, just the same. I forge onwards, ever on, and I walk this world leaving a remnant of what was. It is the best I can do. It is all I can do. The only change I can make, or hope I can share._

_I carry their hope like a last unlit match, afraid to light it and let it burn out, not even able to offer dim companionship from its light as I go, but clinging to the promise that someday what I hold could make one last spark. I write whenever I have the chance, and I keep record of all I see. That is what I call hope now. My hope, my torch. I cannot let the past lie dead in the ground, so I remember it. I bring it with me, and I leave impressions of it around me as I pass. Know as I do that I should have given in to despair long ago, I cannot be beaten so easily, if only for a chance at the impossible. The spite to not give up. There is no justice, no peace, no vengeance or hope here, but I will not stop. I cannot be stopped. I will write forever. I find tools and I leave them, for Alex. For those like her. I leave pages, information, for those like me. I keep walking. Though I have not the skill nor the understanding the alchemist did, I remember his favorite of the symbols he had such faith in, and I etch everywhere I go. I carve it into the trees and the earth, scratch it into the wood and stone and steel of buildings; I draw it daily into my skin. Knowing no matter how many times this world resets itself that the markings which are gone were once there, I try to carve the memory of it into this world: his favorite, a simple symbol like the rising sun, the unreachable dawn._

_I leave traces of those I carry with me, and I record all of what I knew and all that I continue to learn. I leave it here, in my journal—a last act, and so it shall continue to be, until whenever my end comes. I hope my journey has not been in vain. That is the only thing I care enough about that I yet pray for it.  If you find this lore, add to it; make use of it and pass it on, as far as you can, to all you meet. If you find me, bury my body. A final testament, a marker left in the ground. Proof I was here. I will continue to write while I draw breath, and to grow this chronicle. At best, I pray it gives those who come after us a chance to do what we could not, at worst, it remains the last living memory, the final voice speaking for the dead._

_-Benedict Baker, December 1 st, 1989_

 

* * *

  

“You can stop babying me, I got this,” said Dwight, trying to move Jake’s hand off his chest.

“I’m not babying you,” replied Jake, one hand on Dwight’s chest and the other at his back, helping to steady him despite his objections, “I’m making you take it easy, so you don’t get worse.”

“I’m never going to improve if you don’t even let me walk alone,” protested Dwight.

“I’ll let you walk alone when you can stand on your own,” Jake shot back, moving his hands to Dwight’s arms, at the ready in case he started to fall again.

Dwight grimaced, but stopped arguing for a second to focus on trying to keep his balance.

“How’s that?” asked Jake, watching him carefully.

“It’s fine,” replied Dwight, “Better,” he added after a look from Jake, “Less dizzy.”

“Okay,” said Jake, “I’m going to let go.”

Dwight nodded, and slowly, Jake removed his hands from Dwight’s arms, watching for a sign of danger. As he lost the support from Jake, Dwight put out his arms like he was on a balance beam, face screwed up in concentration and wavering a little from side to side, but didn’t fall.

“Good?” asked Jake, looking relieved.

“Yeah,” said Dwight, taking a breath and smiling at him, “I think so.”

He kept his arms out and tried to take a step, and immediately started to tilt too far to the side and lose his balance, waving his arms to overcorrect for the loss, and Jake shot forward and caught him before he could fall, easing him back to an upright position while Dwight breathed heavily.

“Dumbass, get used to standing first,” chided Jake.

“Well, I’m sorry,” shot back Dwight, “I can’t do shit just standing though—if all I can do in trials is get up, I’m going to get a lot of people killed.”

“And if you try and rush everything, you’ll take twice as long getting better and fuck us over for weeks. Take it slow,” argued Jake.

Dwight sighed and used one of his arms to wipe sweat from his brow. Jake took a calming breath and started to walk him through basic movements again, this time more gently.

From about fifteen feet away, Claudette and Quentin watched, leaning against one of the campfire logs.

“I am so glad,” said Quentin, turning from watching their friends to look at Claudette, “That we didn’t get asked to perform brain surgery. You have _no idea_ how much I thought someone was going to do that.”

“Oh my god,” replied Claudette in complete sincerity, turning to look back at him, “Me too! Jake kept looking at his toolbox and I just knew he was going to take out a saw and ask me to do something.”

“Oh my god, me too,” agreed Quentin, slumping against the log and covering his face in his hands, “Everyone here treats us like we’re WebMD but neither us or WebMD is a real doctor.”

Claudette laughed, “Doesn’t that mean it fits, then?”

“No,” said Quentin through the hands, “Because I assume WebMD was written by someone who at least went to medical classes at some point.”

“He does look a lot better, though,” said Claudette, glancing back up over at Dwight and Jake happily. “I was really worried.”

“Me too,” said Quentin, lowering his hands and folding his arms across his chest, joining her in watching as Jake carefully helped Dwight walk a short circuit. “I wish I knew more about how to help him. I’ve been thinking—that other guy, the one Kate calls Adam?”

“Yeah,” replied Claudette, absently running her fingers through the grass beside her.

“Well, he’s some kind of doctor or professor isn’t he? Maybe he can help us,” answered Quentin.

“He does wear a lab-looking-ish coat, I guess,” said Claudette thoughtfully, “But I don’t know that means he’s a doctor.”

“Can’t hurt,” replied Quentin, “Especially since we’d like him to join us anyway.”

“Fair point,” agreed Claudette. “It would be just so incredibly good if he were a doctor though, right?”

“He’s at least an adult,” added Quentin, “Adults know medical things.”

Claudette laughed. “Tapp and Ace don’t.”

“Well, Tapp knows about stab wounds and bullet holes. Plus, I’ll take anyone with even a little medical knowledge to help pool ideas with us—anything at all that helps, at this point,” answered Quentin, “But yeah, a doctor would be amazing.”

Waiting to see what would happen with the Wraith was tense to say the least. The only real consolation was that there was so much to _do_ suddenly, for everyone, and that helped distract a little.  For one thing, Tapp had joined them, and with him, he brought a lot of information about the Pig, and more skills to try and pass around from his experience as a detective.

There was a lot of catching up to do for all of them—not just getting to know someone new like usual either Tapp had showed up at a bad time and there was history with the Wraith to explain to him in mass, and a pretty big chunk to explain to about half the other survivors as well. On top of that, Claudette and Dwight had learned some significant things about moving from area to area, and Dwight’s injuries confirmed suspicions that injuries sustained outside of trials followed their own set of rules, no matter how you got them. They had also gotten a lot of new information from the Wraith—or Philip—himself. How the Entity recruited and operated was at least not entirely guesswork now, although everyone agreed with Philip’s own suggestion that the process was probably distinct for every killer and not uniform, considering what some of them knew about killers from before.

Still, if they took Philip at his word (and openly admit it or not, basically everyone did at this point), it meant that it was at least possible he wasn’t the only person out there killing them they could try to convince to stop, and that bombshell had been hanging in the back of everyone’s mind since it first came up. The big problem with that, though, was that no one except the Wraith had ever given them a reason to think even _maybe_ there was something to them other than killing machine, and they knew for certain that at least three of the twelve other things hunting them were serial killers. So, not _great_ starting odds. After talking it over a bit, they all felt pretty certain that from Philip’s description of his own past and the knowledge they had of the Shape, the Pig, and the Nightmare, the Entity must choose killers based on either simply the prerequisite that they _had_ at some point very recently intentionally killed someone, or based on kill count (intentional or otherwise), since those were the only points of comparison they could draw between all four killers they knew about. Starting with that as an assumed basis, the idea of approaching other killers to try and talk to them seemed _way_ more intimidating, because the whole “If the Wraith isn’t so bad, maybe others aren’t too” argument was a lot more appealing before they considered that there seemed to be a 50-50 chance that mass kill count was a prerequisite to hunting for the Entity, and if that was the case, well, thinking objectively, how many people could accidentally commit mass murder?

On the plus side, the Entity hadn’t come after them to rain down retribution for kidnapping one killer and aiding in the death of another after they let Philip go, so that was…probably good, but it had been about a week, and no one had had a trial with the Wraith yet.  It wasn’t long enough to _definitely_ mean something yet, but it wasn’t good, and the longer it went on, the more nervous it was making people. Still, it was encouraging on its own that they had actually done it—they had survived an all-out fight with a killer, even if that had largely been due to help from another killer, and they’d actually successfully spoken to the Wraith. As Meg put it, “Operation Befriend the Wraith was a smashing success,” and that was some serious progress for them.

The other plus was that Dwight was steadily improving. He’d been sick and confused and had an aversion to the fire light for a little less than twenty-four hours, but he’d been able even during that time to wake up and talk with people for several minutes at a time. Sometimes he would have forgotten things—what had happened recently, names, and one especially worrying time, who any of them were, but things seemed to come back to him after a few minutes of being awake for the most part, and the memory loss got mostly better after the first day. Occasionally he would still forget people’s names in the middle of talking to them, which embarrassed and irritated him, but he didn’t actually forget who anyone was, and the names came back on a delay. After two days of being forced to do nothing but rest, people had been taking turns helping him try to stand, and now walk on his own.  His motor skills were shit, but he could use limbs—he was just fairly overwhelmingly uncoordinated and dizzy. Most of his other symptoms were headaches, tiring out very quickly, and generalized anxiety over the situation (which honestly wasn’t an unmerited response at all, which just made that one harder to deal with).

Nearby, watching Dwight try to practice, Kate was finishing up alterations on Ace’s jacket to give it more buttons.

Everyone had just sort of played the hand they’d been dealt here before, clothing wise—which had meant that Meg and Feng and especially Kate herself had had to get used to being very cold at all times, but with Dwight shirtless and Claudette almost the same, people had started to offer or trade up to even things out. Claudette had been gifted Quentin’s jacket, and Dwight had been offered Jake’s coat, which was too big on him to be practical in trials (while they were close to the same height, Jake was considerably more muscular), and then passed Ace’s shirt as a more usable gift, which meant now Ace was running around in a suit jacket that—until just now—didn’t really have enough buttons to work the way a shirt ought to. Thankfully for them, while most of Dwight and Claudette’s shirts had been unsalvageable, the buttons had been.

With the sudden goal of making sure everyone wasn’t freezing on the table, Kate herself had been offered David’s coat, Ace’s jacket in exchange for her bandana top (which she had almost accepted just to see if Ace could live up to his grandstanding promise to ‘rock it well’), and Meg’s running crop-top, in case she didn’t want to be warmer but _did_ want to ‘shake it up in the sexy department.’ She had turned all of them down, although it was sweet, because she had adjusted pretty well to being cold all the time, but she had offered to temporarily swap with Meg sometime if she felt like it just for fun.

As far as serious issues went, shoes had been worse, and a much bigger problem for them, because Claudette had demolished hers. Usually losing clothes wasn’t really a problem. If you tore them outside of a trial, you had to fix it, but that tended to be minimal, and usually your clothes went back to normal just like your body once a trial ended. The difference seemed to be that Claudette hadn’t walked out with hers. Much like losing an item in a trial, apparently any clothing forfeit in a trial was gone forever, and the outfit—including its changed shape and purpose—had defaulted to the Wraith. Her shoes and shirt were gone for good. The remnants of her sneakers that had made it back to camp where completely unsalvageable, and there were no extra shoes to go around—plus the fact that shoes were a lot less one-size-fits-all than any other item of clothing. For the past few matches, she’d just been wrapping her feet in bandages like a boxer would their fists and using that like shoes. A couple people had offered to swap with her, or suggested trying to speedily do a trade if they could tell she was about to go for a trial, but she’d made a joke about how most of the killers went barefoot and they were all faster than her so maybe it would help, and just toughed it out. It didn’t seem to slow her down much, but she had gotten her feet cut up several times now, which worried Kate.

_Still_ , she thought, watching Dwight slowly try to take a step himself, Jake’s hands at his chest and back in case he started to go down. _Everyone’s doin’ their best. All things considered, that’s pretty good. There’s a lot to deal with, and we’re dealin’—nothing to be ashamed of in that, even if all we’re doin’ right now is dealin’._

 

“You need to take a break?” Jake asked Dwight, watching how hard he was breathing with the effort of trying to stand on his own, and then suddenly he felt a familiar sensation in his arms, and glanced down at his hands to see they were starting to vanish. “Oh, fuck me,” muttered Jake. _Always at the best possible time_.

“Fuck me too, I guess,” agreed Dwight, holding onto Jake’s arm with one hand to keep from falling as he moved his other in front of his face to watch it starting to dematerialize.

“You went like two hours ago,” snapped Jake, usually better at containing his irritation, but failing today.

“Yeah,” agreed Dwight, resigned as he started to vanish. The Entity had been running him hard—almost relentless. Whatever else they were guessing about, they were pretty sure it got some kind of sick pleasure out of really fucking with them.

A quick look about the group showed Jake that Ace was going too, and whoever was fourth, it wasn’t Claudette, Quentin, David, or Kate.

“It’s fine, I have a shroud,” said Jake, holding it up for Ace to see so he wouldn’t waste one of his own. It was Jake’s last shroud. They didn’t use the things often, because most of them were about as likely to get you in trouble as they were to help, since the killers all knew what they did and could sense if they had been used, but they’d been burning through them like gasoline the past week so people could start with Dwight, and even with the supply they had saved up, the shrouds were all almost gone.

“I’m sorry,” said Dwight unhappily, taking a breath. They all knew pretty solidly the survival rates for a trial with Dwight right now, and it was one person in the hatch.

“Don’t,” said Jake, expression set, “Come on, let’s get it done.”

They were gone then, and crackling back to life somewhere new. He saw Dwight as they rematerialized, about seven feet away, and barely made the mad dash in time to catch him as he stumbled on entry and started to fall. Half crouched, supporting his friend and steadying him before pulling him back upright, Jake paused to take in where he was. It was the middle of a large yard, Ace and a rather surprised looking Adam Francis a few feet away, near a large foundry. _The Ironworks,_ Jake recognized immediately. _Okay, not so bad. Places here to hide well._

“You okay,” he whispered, raising Dwight back up. Dwight nodded, looking miserable about the prospect of being stuck as baggage slowing someone down in a trial yet again.

Ace came over, and with him the tall man in the white coat approached cautiously, giving the lot of them a questioning look, having solidly hit the new survivor stage where you realized talking, ever, was a risk that just wasn’t worth taking, and not yet into the acceptance stage where you realized you didn’t really give a shit anymore about that small an added probability of death, because you were probably going to die anyway.

“Injured, outside of a trial,” Ace whispered incredibly quietly, looking exceedingly happy to see Adam.

The other man looked troubled, maybe even a little shaken by the knowledge that getting hurt outside a trial was maybe likely to happen and could do this to you. He took a step towards Dwight and Jake a little hesitant and awkwardly, a weird expression on his face—like someone used to passing people on the street with only the most formal of interactions suddenly stuck trying to figure out the right way to offer help to complete strangers.

“I’ll run interference and go make noise,” said Ace, even though he knew full well Jake was better at that. He’d been trying more and more recently to pick up that burden, because doing it again and again was wearing on Jake, Meg, Nea, and Laurie a bit more than any of them would admit out loud.

“I can do it,” whispered Jake, shaking his head, “I’m faster.”

Adam looked very confused.

“Take Dwight, explain to him,” Jake started to say, indicating Adam, and then a chill ran down his spine as from behind him he heard the familiar sound of a bell toll.

 

* * *

 

 

He’s back.

Philip’s still alive. Jake and Ace and Dwight were in a trial with him and Adam. I wasn’t there this time. I haven’t seen him yet. I know it’s horrible, but I’m sort of glad.

This isn’t like I thought it would be. We were all so worried about him—it’s been over a week since we finally got to talk to him and he disappeared again. I thought everyone would be relieved—I thought I would be happy. But I’m not.

He killed everyone, you know? Not sacrificed, but killed. Like me, and David, and Kate and Nea before.

They’re okay. Dwight, and Ace, and Jake. I guess I don’t know about Adam. We still haven’t been able to bring him back to the campfire with us. But anyway, that’s not the problem. We knew what we were signing up for. It sucks—don’t get me wrong. I’m afraid of dying—we’re all afraid of dying, and pain doesn’t get any easier here, no matter how many times you die. It always hurts, and it’s always scary, and powerless, and empty. But we knew that.

It didn’t really feel real before. Not all of it, I mean, but what we were asking him to do. I keep thinking about the way he looked so hunted by the idea of being trapped, stuck killing us, and we didn’t care. We sent him right back to it.

I know that isn’t really fair. What could we have done? The Entity knew we were breaking rules, and if we’d kept him maybe it would have shown up and taken him back, or had him kill us for real, or something even worse. We don’t know. It’s a good plan, and I know that. If we hadn’t done all of this, we never would have even gotten to meet him in the first place, but. …But he wanted to die more than he wanted to kill us again, and we wouldn’t let him do it.

You know, I’ve been scared here a lot, ever since I got here, but I’ve never been scared or hopeless enough to want to die. Not for real die. Not like Laurie, or like Philip. I’m so scared of something like that happening to me for real, because I want to go home. I want to see my family again, and plant flowers and pet dogs and cats and listen to music. To really want to die, more than to want to go through something again? That must be some kind of awful I can’t even really understand yet. And what happens if we’re wrong? We won’t know until we’ve gone through nine more trials and can try to talk to Philip again for real, but what if we don’t get him back? What if we lose him for real?

I wonder if we’re monsters, in our own way. I’m not a killer. I would never, ever hurt someone on purpose, unless I was having to fight them to protect a friend maybe or something. But I did. I hurt someone. Even though I thought that I wouldn’t. What I did to Philip is wrong. I don’t know what other choice we had, but there must have been one, right? Isn’t there always? The guilt is making me do a bad job of the things I’m usually good at, and even though I know it’s wrong, I’m glad I didn’t have to see him kill anyone this time. I don’t think I could have handled it. I would have tried to stop him and ruined it, probably, and if I had, after everything we’ve already made him do, wouldn’t that be worse?

I wonder if I’m bad?

I think all of us must feel kind of the same way, because no one was excited about hearing he was back. Well, not exactly. At first we were. Everyone was—we’d all been so worried. It was a relief. But it’s been a while now, and everyone’s gotten really quiet. We aren’t even really keeping up with the stuff we did before. Training, or fixing things, or making supplies. It’s like the weight of this is sitting on our shoulders and slowing us down. I think Jake feels bad especially, although I can never really tell with Jake. He’s a really hard person for me to read, and I’m not amazing at that in the first place. He was happier before this, though. I think he was enjoying helping Dwight, and seeing that things were getting better. Now he looks serious all the time, and I couldn’t get him to talk to me.

-Claudette Morel

 

* * *

 

 

I’ve been in a trial with ~~the Wraith~~ Philip now. It’s been four trials so far. I saw him in the third, and then Meg, and Kate, and Feng, and David had one.

That was about two days ago, I think—the third trial. The one I was in.

He looks a little different. Mostly the same, but there’s a crack in his mask, sort of in the middle, sort of above the right eye. He acts like before—like every time he’s gotten reset. We’ve been trying to follow Dwight’s instructions and act natural, which for some of us means doing what we did before, like bringing in flowers, or trying to talk to him (although not well enough to _really_ get any attention yet). Quentin and I were in the same trial, with Tapp and Laurie, but we both kind of messed that up. He caught us really easily, and we didn’t even do a good job of trying to talk to him like we used to, because it’s hard to see him and not feel like crying, or looking away, or saying something we shouldn’t. I made it out, because of Tapp. The others didn’t.

He’s been moriing people a lot. Not constantly, not like the Shape was maybe a month ago or anything, or the Trapper every time he sees Feng. But off and on. For him, that’s a lot. Before the day I tried to talk to him and he let me go, he’d never done it at all.

I know we’re supposed to act like before, but I can’t do it right. It felt awful, knowing that there is all of this stuff I remember about him that he’s just. Forgotten. It’s worse than that though—it isn’t just gone, it’s been taken. I know that it’s still him, but it’s like a version of him is dead. Like I let him get killed. It’s hard to look down at him from a hook, or up at him bleeding on the ground, and not think about him stopping a chainsaw above me, or sitting against a tree, talking quietly about wanting to go home.

I am so, so sorry. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

I wonder if that’s how he felt at all?

No wonder he couldn’t stand the idea of going back.

-Claudette Morel

 

* * *

 

 

There are only two trials left now. Before we hit ten. I’ve only been in two of the eight. Number three and number five. I’ve been having nightmares.

In the dreams, I keep waking up alone in the forest. I wander around for a little while, calling for everyone else, but I can never find them. Instead, I end up in a garden. Only, it’s all overgrown, and there are briars everywhere, and it’s dark, a foggy, and something is wrong. I can smell blood, and there’s a taste in the air like acid, and the wind howls and I can tell on my skin that it’s freezing cold, but somehow I’m burning up inside. There’s a sound like dripping, and I start to walk around and notice weird shapes under the plants and I realize there are bodies—people there. I never know who, but I always try to move the thorny vines off of them and see if they’re okay, but when I try, I look down and see that the plants are growing out of my arms, and I know I must have done this somehow. I get scared and try to rip the vines out of my arms, but when I do, the skin tears back instead and my arms peel away and my fingers fall off and all that’s left is the vines and I’m always so scared, but I can’t stop it. I try to call for help, for anybody, but no one ever hears me.

Sometimes the dream ends there. Sometimes the terrain changes, and I’m somewhere else. Like a trial ground. And I’ll see someone and I’ll think maybe they can help me, and I will start to chase after them, but when I catch up, my body moves on its own and I attack them and choke them, or tear them apart with the thorns. Sometimes I grab them and throw them up on a hook, all the while trying to scream and tell myself to stop, but never able to. Sometimes they scream too, or beg, or just stare at me, as scared as I feel. I never recognize them. Occasionally in the dream, I never catch up and they get away instead. And in those dreams I beg them to come back, to help me, but they run away, and I get to a barrier I can’t get past, and I just watch them disappear and leave me.

I know, realistically, this doesn’t mean anything. It’s just dreams. All of this stuff that’s been happening is just echoing around in my head, and I’m worried about Philip, and everyone. I’m just scared, because we all know now that being a killer can happen to people who didn’t want it, or deserve it. But I’m still really scared. I haven’t talked to anyone about it because I’m afraid to. I don’t know what they’d say, or think. But I’m afraid to sleep now. I’ve been staying up with Quentin—asking him for tips, drinking coffee, doing what I can. I don’t understand how he lives like this, because it’s just making everything worse. But even though I know that, I’m still afraid to sleep, and I keep trying not to. I know he’s worried about me, and he’s tried asking me a couple of times if something’s wrong, but I can’t tell him.

I wonder. If we don’t get Philip back. If the Entity broke him so badly this last time that there’s nobody left to get. Does that mean he’s dead? Does it mean that we killed him?

Do I have blood on my hands too?

-Claudette Morel

 

* * *

 

 

None of this has been helping me or anyone else. I’m sorry that the last few days all I’ve done is talk about how bad I feel about things.

I’ve never really had friends before, so I’m not used to feeling like I’m letting anyone down except my parents and myself. But this is stupid.

He’s just so different that it scares me. Or it makes me sad. Both—I don’t know. I know this has happened before, but we didn’t really know him. So it’s different now. He’s different. I don’t know how to explain what it’s like to see someone you think of as your friend killing people you love, knowing that they wouldn’t hesitate to do the same thing to you. And knowing it’s not their fault, but not knowing for sure if you’re going to be able to ever stop them.

I try so hard not to be scared of him, but I am, and I feel guilty about that because I know him. I know him as Philip, and I’m not scared of Philip, I shouldn’t be, but I can’t stop feeling terrified. Even though I know it’s wrong.

As the Wraith, he’s huge, and scary, and silent. He’s this big thing that stalks you from the shadows and comes out of nowhere to hurt you and grab you and throw you up on a hook. But really he’s not like that. He’s big, and good, and quiet. I know that I’ve really only talked to him once, but that’s what I want to think about right now. The version of him that’s the real person. Every time I’ve seen him act like himself, it’s been something that sticks with me longer and stronger than any memories I have of the Wraith. I should remember that, because it’s important. I can’t make myself stop being scared of him, so I want to do this. Write it down. To try and do him justice. Everything I can remember.

The very first time he let me go, with Dwight, he was surprised. We were both surprised. It was sort of like looking into a mirror.

The second time, in Autohaven, when he went wild. It was weird. He was like a storm, tearing apart anything in his way, and then I asked him to stop. I’d done that before. I used to do that all the time, back when I hoped the killers would listen to me, or might take pity on me. But he did stop. It was like he recognized me suddenly, after having forgotten who I was. Jerky, and slow, and confused. I remember being terrified when he started ramming his head into one of the walls, because I had no idea what he was doing, or why he was hurting himself, and something like that is scary to see. He wouldn’t open his eyes after that—after he stopped. They weren’t hurt, or swollen or anything. He just wouldn’t do it. I remember he grabbed my arm. I think he knew I was scared, because he held up his hand like he wasn’t going to hurt me. He carried me like a cat that time. Or a stuffed animal, instead of thrown over his shoulder. Gentle, the whole walk, like he was afraid he was going to break me. I can be so stupid; I was so afraid I didn’t understand what he was trying to do until he got close to the exit gate.

It shouldn’t be surprising, I guess, some of the things he said to us once we got him. When he let me go that first time, he pulled away from my touch like it burned him, and he didn’t want to take my gauze. I thought maybe he just didn’t trust me back then, but I think now he felt bad. Because he’d hurt me.

I’m really happy things have happened like they have. Not all of it, but that I got to talk to him. That we’re going to get him back. Watching him fight was incredible. He must have been half-dead, but he moved like nothing I’ve ever seen. Talking to him was even better. He’s smart, and he was pretty forgiving about being kidnapped and tied to a tree. If you look at the whole thing literally, it was a pretty rocky place to start making friends from. He was still really nice to us though, and tried hard to answer all the questions we had, even though he didn’t want to. I wouldn’t want to either. It really is some kind of world out there, isn’t it? Not just in here. There’s a lot of good stuff, but there’s a lot of bad stuff too. I forget sometimes, that things weren’t fair there either. We know we won’t get a happy ending in here, but I guess we never knew it wouldn’t turn out the same way in the real world too, huh? But I guess we don’t know, and that’s part of it. It might be good, too. At least we’d all get a chance. Right now, that’s more than enough for me.

I wonder who he’s got left out in the real world, if he’s been here since 1982? I hope he has people still waiting. It wouldn’t be fair.

I’m being pulled for a trial. I’ll pick up l

 

* * *

 

 

_Oh,_ thought Claudette in surprise, _It’s been awhile._ The chapel.

It was beautiful here. At least, she had thought so the first time she’d seen this place. It hadn’t always been there. It had come around the same time Kate did—or, at least, that was when Claudette had seen it herself for the first time.

The building was big, and almost white, with large stained glass windows. It had reminded her of home, of Saint James Church in Montreal. They were shattered though, the windows. Not all of them, but many of them. And there were no pews inside anymore. Just debris. Still, it felt like a church in a way that was familiar. Claudette hadn’t really been religious, but she’d gone with her mom and dad sometimes to a Christmas service, just to see, and the candles had always been nice. That had been a long time ago, mostly—when she was younger. She didn’t remember the speeches, or the prayers, or the hymns. But she remembered the candles and the way they had lit up the stained glass. It had always been a part of how Christmas felt to her, colored glass and candles and the sounds echoing off a high ceiling. Like a step in a ritual completed once a year. Warm, and peaceful, and safe.

Something that could be that pretty should never have been in a place like this, but of course it was. The familiar heaviness of a mori hung in the air. What could go together better than the vow that death would be coming soon, and the shattered remains of something that was meant to be a promise of safety.

She wasn’t very close to the chapel though. She was closer to the Clown’s terrifying horse and his cart, and the strange circus displays. _There’s usually a generator by the cart,_ she offered herself, slipping off through the pitched tents and signs, staying out of sight and listening for movement.

When the trial had started, she’d been so into writing she hadn’t had time to see who was with her. The past few days she’d been journaling just inside the woods, instead of at the campfire. She’d needed the privacy. _I guess I’ll find out,_ she thought ruefully, sliding into place by the generator which hadn’t disappointed in its usual placement by the Clown’s cart. In ways, this was like a long time ago, before they’d all started teaming up. She’d never known what would happen back then. Sometimes whole trials would go by without her ever even seeing another person.

Suddenly she could see Kate’s aura, inside the chapel, and she winced sympathetically as she felt Kate take the hit on her right arm, her presence lighting up in Claudette’s view as soon as she became injured.  _Hang in there,_ she thought, watching Kate’s outline vault what must have been a second story windowsill and drop to the ground far opposite her, taking off away and right.

_Okay,_ she thought, focusing on her own generator as Kate’s outline leapt another windowsill and wove through some kind of structure opposite her, far out of view, _She’s doing well—buying us a lot of time. You should finish this while you can._

Kate went down suddenly, caught sliding over a dropped pallet, and Claudette fumbled, misaligning a wire and sparking her gen. _Crap! Great, nice going,_ she thought angrily, half watching to see where Kate went up and half monitoring her generator, trying to figure out how much she’d regressed it. Kate went up on a hill, somewhere a bit past the chapel, and Claudette settled the gen and kept working, the machine at maybe sixty percent.

_Do I stop and finish?_ she thought nervously, glancing towards Kate, outline hanging limply past the chapel wall, _Or do I go get Kate?_ No one else had lit a gen, but they had to be close. Kate had run the killer well, and on top of that, whichever one it was would probably come here next, since she’d made so much noise on it.

_Right, Kate,_ decided Claudette, standing up and running towards the chapel. Honestly, she was glad to have an easy excuse. She always wanted to go help people over fixing generators. Jake used to get mad at her over that constantly.

Claudette had made it almost clean through the church when someone else beat her to Kate. She paused, ducking into cover by an empty doorway, watching Kate’s outline as she slipped off to the right, waiting to see if they would be caught. A few seconds passed, and Claudette didn’t hear anything, so she turned to go back to her gen, feeling a little bit foolish for wasting time. Off to her far left, someone lit a generator in the chapel yard.

She started to go, back to her own, unfinished generator, but above her she heard the sound of a generator well underway clicking along. _Kate’s_ she realized. It might be smarter to go and finish that one first, since killers tended to check the generators of people they’d already caught. They knew all too well that the survivors were likely to go back and finish what they’d started over beginning again at zero, and even though all of them knew the killers did that, halfway progress on a generator was hard to pass up, even with added danger. _If I go while she’s still hurt, he might not check it yet,_ thought Claudette, turning and racing up the stairs. Behind her, she felt a faint pain and turned to see Tapp’s outline light up, dangerously close to Kate’s.

_Oh no._

She made herself keep going, reaching the generator and stumbling over it as best she could, while in her periphery she saw both her friends running. Tapp went down fast, and then Kate, almost a second later. _Whoever it is is fast,_ she thought worriedly, watching in fear to see if Kate would die. It took her a second to realize it, only able to see her friend’s auras, but the killer went back for Tapp first. She saw him lifted into the air. _There might be time,_ she thought quickly, jumping up from the generator and running down the stairs to try to reach Kate in time to save her. As her bare feet hit the cold stone floor of the downstairs, Tapp went up on a hook off to her left, way closer than she had expected. _Crap, crap, crap. Come on, come on._ She went as fast as she could, feet wrapped in bandages still trying to get used to the sharp stones digging into her soles and slicing at her skin. Ahead of her, she saw Kate’s outline through a wall, and she heard the heartbeat aura that came off of killers like a warning that your own would cease if you got any closer. _He’s going to beat me to her,_ she thought desperately, willing herself to go faster, turning her last corner so fast she almost slammed into the far wall.

As she turned and saw Kate with her eyes, saw her for real for the first time, she saw the Wraith above her, huge and terrible, hand wrapped around Kate’s ankle, dragging her backwards towards him in a motion that was all too familiar.

Claudette screamed. He was going to kill Kate, and she wasn’t sure if she was trying to get him to stop, or just scared, or horrified, but it was loud, and he looked up at her, pausing mid-motion, burning white eyes catching her instantly in the darkness. The Wraith shifted its grip on the sickle in its hand and let go of Kate’s ankle, and straightened up, moving towards her, stalking like a hunter.

Petrified, Claudette took a step back and hit the little stone wall behind her, trembling, trying to remind herself of another version of the person in front of her. She wanted to run, but she also wanted him to chase her and leave Kate. There was still a fourth out here somewhere who might be able to get to her and Tapp in time if she could draw him away.

He moved suddenly then, and his arm shot out to grab her, and Claudette ducked out of the way and ran.

The Wraith came after her, fast. She tried to weave, hoping to avoid the sickle when it eventually came down on her, trying to make it as far as possible from Tapp and Kate. _I need cover,_ she thought desperately, looking at a myriad of already shattered pallets, _I need to get to the other side of the chapel._

Turning on her heel, Claudette swung out of the Wraith’s reach and leapt a low windowsill, running full tilt back into the chapel. There was an open doorway across from her, and she made for it as fast as she could, bare feet leaving little drops of blood on the chapel floor amongst tiny chunks of wood and stone. She had almost made it, too, when he caught up to her.

Behind her, she sensed the motion as he lunged, and she flung herself into a sudden change in direction, slamming into the wall of the staircase as he overshot behind her, and then dragging herself up by the railing. There were three stained glass windows above her, and the middle one had been broken, leaving a way out. Claudette tried to make it, catching the red stain falling over her shoulders as the Wraith closed the distance behind her, but she ran as hard as she could, lungs burning for air, and with all the force she had, threw herself out the window. She cleared the sill, but as she started to fall, something caught her ankle, and with nowhere to go the force of her leap completed its arc and swung her backwards and she rammed her head against the outside of the building and her vision went dark for a second.

As the light faded in and out, she felt herself being pulled up by her leg and her body being moved as something picked her up.

“No,” she mumbled, trying weakly to struggle, feeling blood trickle down the side of her head.

The thing holding her kept going, and as her vision focused in on the blood on the chest she was held against she panicked and started to kick and struggle with ferocity, trying frantically to get free. There was an arm holding her up, near her shoulders, and she swung around and bit into it, and the arm recoiled in surprise and suddenly there was nothing supporting her weight and she pitched forward and slammed into the ground on her side.

It hurt, and her head ached, and disoriented and scared she saw the huge man above her, and she tried to crawl backwards away from him over the torn red carpet of the chapel’s second floor, but her back hit the wall after only a few feet and there was nowhere left to go.

_It’s okay, it’s okay,_ she told herself, trying to slow down her racing heartbeat, _He’s killed you before. You’re okay. You’ll be okay._

The Wraith was only about five feet away, looking down at her, right hand closed around his sickle, left arm bleeding just a little from where she’d bitten him. He looked down at her, the fear of his aura overwhelming her senses, and then he took a step towards her. His right hand moved and she flinched, anticipating the blow.

It didn’t come. Instead, eyes fixed on her, the Wraith took another step and knelt in front of her, carefully and meaningfully setting his sickle down on the ground beside him and holding his palms out to her non-threateningly.

“Kuna lafiya,” she heard him say. The language was unfamiliar, and she didn’t know what he’d said, but the tone was calming, reassuring, like someone talking to a small child. “Ba ku buƙatar gudu daga gare ni. Ba zan cuce ku ba.”

_Does he…? There’s no way, but._ He was watching her steadily, waiting for a response.

“Philip?” she asked, barely daring to hope.

At the sound of his name she saw his body tense, snapping to alertness. _Surprise,_ she realized, hope fading a little.

“Ee,” he whispered, nodding almost like he was afraid to. “Ke wacece?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered back, feeling like crying and completely lost in how to respond, “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“A'a?” he answered quietly, looking confused. She shook her head, guessing at what that meant, and she saw a little of the hope on his own face disappear. He swallowed, then after a moment he tried again, speaking quietly and slowly, like he was picking the words carefully. “English, then?” he asked. She nodded. “Who are you?” said Philip, looking as lost as she felt.

_I can’t,_ she thought, _It hasn’t been ten yet. We’re supposed to wait._ Hadn’t that been just an overestimation to be safe though? It would probably be okay, right? Couldn’t…She had to at least say something.

“I’m Claudette,” she answered, introducing herself to her friend for the seventh time, hoping this one would be the last, “Morel,” she added haltingly. “Do you…You don’t remember me?” she asked with waning hope, praying that somehow, something would remain.

He shook his head, looking self-conscious and confused. “I do not,” he said quietly. “I should?” he asked after a second, watching her and looking a little lost.

She nodded wordlessly, feeling empty and sad. She had known it was coming, but. But she had hoped. Maybe.

“You know me,” he asked, glowing eyes fixed on her.

“I do,” said Claudette, nervously looking around at the air above them, wishing she could tell if it was safe.

Philip followed her gaze. “It is not here,” he said, looking from the ceiling back down to her. “That is why I spoke to you this time. I have been waiting for you to be here when it was not.”

“W—,” she stopped, then started again, trying to keep up, “You’ve been waiting for me?”

He gave a nod.

“But, how? If you don’t remember,” she was tripping over herself, trying to understand what was happening, trying to figure out what to do, how to feel, “I don’t understand.”

Philip reached out his left arm suddenly and flicked his wrist. In spite of herself, she flinched instinctively at the quick motion before she had seen what it was really going to be, and he noticed and held his right hand, palm out, trying to reassure her as the bell he carried appeared in his left. He held it out to her, careful to keep his distance, like someone trying to approach a scared animal, afraid he might spook her into fleeing him if he got much closer.

Claudette reached out a tentative hand and took it, turning it over in her hands, and looked up at him, confused.

“Inside,” he said, drawing his hand back slowly this time, and indicating the bell with a motion of his head.

She turned the bell and looked into its hollow, and to her surprise found letters, small and uncertain, traced in a spiral in what looked like dried blood. “Is this Arabic?” she asked, looking at the script which was familiar, but unknown to her.

“Ajami,” he answered softly. “It is for me. I must have left it. No one else would have been able to.”

“You found a way to leave yourself a note,” she said in wonder, staring down at the bell, “I can’t believe it. W-What does it say,” she added hurriedly, pausing form marveling over the thing in her hands to stare up at him.

“It says,” he stopped for a moment, thinking, and then continued, “It calls me by a nickname my brother used, which I will not repeat because it is not appropriate, and then it tells me ‘The Alledjenu lies. You repeat your past with innocents. Find sister when it does not watch. Do not give yourself away,’ and it is signed with my mother’s name,” he finished, looking at the same time both uncomfortable in speaking and hopeful that she might understand the message. “Since I read this I have done everything I can to do what it says, because it begins and ends exactly as I would leave myself a message if I wanted to be absolutely sure I would take it as gravely serious. And, going over what it says, I thought it had to mean you,” said Philip after a moment, awkwardly, “To be the one to find. I wrote it to be able to understand, and that would be the only thing to makes sense. I am…not wrong?”

She shook her head, wordless, trying to take all of this in.

“I. …I don’t…understand even everything I have left myself,” he said after a second, uncomfortable and cautious, watching her for some kind of sign he could interpret and try to understand. She couldn’t imagine what it might be like to have to ask someone else to know who you used to be, but it looked painful. He took a breath and continued. “I have been hoping that when this time came. That I might,” he stopped again, like he was having trouble, then after a moment he said in an almost defeated voice, “Do you know…?”

She nodded, fighting back the sudden urge to cry. He noticed the tears welling up in her eyes and looked startled.

“Are you,” he started to ask, reaching a hand out towards her. In the gesture was everything she had been so afraid the past two weeks she would never see again, and as he reached towards her the pent-up fear shattered and she started to sob, shoulders shaking with the weight of the relief and happiness and sadness that overwhelmed her.

Philip snatched his hand back, misinterpreting the response as fear, and held up his hands again, trying to show he wasn’t going to hurt her, edging back a little on his soles to give her some space. “It’s okay,” he said worriedly, trying to reassure her, “You do not have to be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you. I promise. I know you have reasons to not believe that, but I swear to you, I will not. See?” With the back of his right hand he shoved the sickle beside him to the edge of the hallway, out of reach, then looked back at her nervously to see if this was working. It was sweet, and she couldn’t stop crying. She started to cry harder instead, and his face fell. “You’re okay,” he said, trying to sound comforting. “You will be okay. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you when you—I was afraid you would not stop running from me—”

She launched herself at him, and taken by surprise, he tried to move back out of her path too late, and she caught him at the waist and threw her arms around him, burying her head against him and crying into his chest. She felt him go rigid, arms out to the side stiffly like he was afraid to touch her and didn’t know what to do with them, so exactly the way he’d been before that it just made everything more: the happiness, the sadness, the relief.

“We’re friends,” she managed, shoulders still shaking, “Only you keep forgetting. The Entity makes you forget every time you figure it out.”

“I. I…Figure what…? ” she heard him try to say, still awkward and tense, kneeling with her wrapped around his waist, “Are you—You are still crying.” He sounded dismayed and lost, no idea what to do with her. “Is this my fault?” he asked, “Have I done something I do not remember? I know I have—”

“No,” she said, closing her eyes, “I’m just so glad you’re back. I was afraid we were going to lose you for real.”

“…You? –We. Then,” he said haltingly, “You mean the other souls.” He got quiet for a moment then, and she felt his heartbeat speed up and become uneven in his chest as she held on to him. She opened her eyes and looked up at his face. His head was turned away, looking out the broken window into the yard below. Maybe at people she couldn’t see, maybe just not to be looking at her. “I know the answer, I think,” he said quietly after a second, “and that what I am asking you must be very stupid to you, but I have to ask it. You all,”

“We’re just normal people,” she answered the unfinished question, her own heartbeat finally slowing down, and closing her eyes again. “Like you.”

Above her, he got very quiet, and she heard his heart pound faster in his chest against her ear, his breathing quiet, but suddenly coming in uneven and jagged.

“I thought that would be it,” he said after a moment, voice restrained and taught. “But I had hoped.” She felt some of the tension in his body ease then, and his shoulders slumped, like he had given up. Gently, hesitantly, he placed his hands on her shoulders and moved her back, trying to make her let go of him.

She wanted to fight that, but she didn’t. She let herself be moved until she was kneeling opposite him, arms back at her sides, looking up.

“I am sorry,” he said, letting go of her slowly, watching his movements carefully now to make sure they were not something that would scare her. “I do not know what else I can say to you. Even just these past few days, the things I have done to not be found out. I even killed the one who was too injured to run from me.” There was a tone to his voice she wasn’t used to hearing. Not intense enough in emotion to be what she would have thought of as horror, but something like it, only cold, a step removed. Like horror if it could age. “Only minutes ago, I was going to kill your friend. I know that you seem to know me somehow, but the things I have—”

“—No, you don’t get to feel bad,” she said, cutting him off and shaking her head at him. “You already did that. A lot of times.” He looked surprised, and she stretched her hand out and placed it on his arm, but he flinched at her touch and drew back. “You got hurt for us,” she continued softly, glancing at her empty hand and then tilting her head to look up at him, “Risked never coming back to try to save us. You’re one of us now.”

“Ni…” he said to himself under his breath, looking out the window again. Then stopped and looked down at her. “I don’t understand,” he said, voice almost a whisper, and she believed it.

“I’ll help you,” she said, holding her hand out for his.

He stared at the hand, and then back at her. Very slowly, he reached out, only about halfway, then hesitated. Claudette leaned forward and took the hand, closing both of hers around it. She felt the tension in his hand, saw it in his posture, in his breathing. For a second she thought he was going to pull away again, but he didn’t, and after a moment she felt his fingers relax in hers, and he turned his head and stared at her, like she was something he couldn’t understand.

“Who are you?” he asked again, watching her with something almost like wonder.

“Your little sister, I guess,” she smiled, looking up at him.

Surprise flickered across his face and he cleared his throat and looked away, embarrassed. “You could say anything and I would not know,” he said almost mournfully, still not looking at her.

“Well, make sure you don’t say something like that in front of Meg, or she’ll abuse it forever,” answered Claudette, feeling overwhelmingly happy at having successfully lifted his mood a little.

“Who?” he asked, risking a look in her direction, still embarrassed. Then his eyes narrowed, “No, wait, that is the redhead. I know this one.”

“That’s her,” Claudette agreed, keeping hold of his hand and watching him in the colored moonlight of the broken stained-glass windows.

“You, all of you,” he hurried to add, glancing out the window into the yard below, “We are all not enemies then? I am not…” he thought for a second, trying to pick exactly what he wanted to say, “You don’t fear me?” he asked, and she knew somehow that he was asking her this too.

“No,” she said. And she meant it. “Sometimes when you forget us and you’re just the Wraith, then you scare us, but we aren’t really afraid of you. Of Philip.”

“How many times has this happened?” asked Philip, looking genuinely and deeply concerned. It was funny, being able to tell that so easily. She’d only had the one long conversation with him, and he had a mask, but the mud and bark didn’t hide everything.

Refocusing on the question he’d asked, Claudette had to mentally count before she answered. “Four? Five? –Four, I think.”

“Oh,” said Philip, glowing white eyes flickering in the moonlight as he blinked. “Is it likely to happen again?” he asked her, worried and braced, like someone getting test results back from a doctor.

_I don’t know,_ she thought, at a loss under the pressure to answer a question that big. _I hope not. I don’t want it to. Ever._

“I don’t know,” she answered after a moment, not wanting to lie to him, “But we have a plan, and we’re gonna to try not to let it. And if it does, we’ll get you back again. I promise.”

He took that in slowly, watching her expression carefully, maybe trying to tell if he could trust her. Finally, he nodded.

“I, uh,” he said after a moment, awkwardly looking down at the hand she still wasn’t letting go of, then back at her, “I don’t really know what happens next. I followed all of the instructions I gave myself.”

Behind Philip, back towards the stairs, Claudette saw a flicker of movement, and realized it was Kate, creeping up the staircase towards them. She had edged pretty close to the top without Claudette even noticing, and was paused a few feet from Philip’s discarded sickle, clutching a flashlight. They locked eyes.

Philip noticed the look on her face and turned, and in the millisecond it took for him to see she was there he moved like a bolt of lightning, already half to his feet, tense and ready to fight. Claudette clung to his hand and tried to drag him back down.

“Wait, wait!” she called after him, “It’s okay! That’s Kate! She’s okay—Kate, it’s Philip! He’s back.”

He stopped and looked down at her, half-dangling from his arm, then at Kate, still tense, but hesitating. Cautiously, he held up his free hand towards her, nonaggressively. “Kate?” he asked.

“Philip?” she responded slowly, going pale and straightening back up from what had potentially been a lunge for his weapon. “You remember?”

“No,” said Claudette, using Philip’s arm to pull herself up since she wasn’t having much luck making him sit back down, and then locking it to her chest, her own arms wrapped around it, “But we talked. And he’s back.” Philip glanced at her to see what she was doing, then turned back to Kate, keeping his palm out but lowering the hand a little, unsure what he was expected to do.

Kate dropped the flashlight. “Hey,” said Kate, face breaking into a smile. Hey eyes welled up, and Claudette saw the same horrified expression come over Philip’s face that had been there a second ago.

“It’s okay,” she whispered from beside him as Kate rubbed at her eyes with a forearm. “She’s just happy to see you.”

Philip looked over his shoulder at her and nodded, still looking nervous.

“Y’all can come up,” Kate called, leaning over the railing. “It’s good.”

Under her fingers, Claudette felt Philip tense again, and he took a half-step backwards as they heard the sound of footsteps. She squeezed his arm, and he looked down at her again.

“You are sure?” he said to her under his breath. “I think I would be angry.”

Claudette shook her head and gave him a reassuring smile. “We all like you.”

He gave her a nod, like he was trying to believe that more than that he did, and faced the stairs as Tapp and Adam appeared, Tapp still holding a flashlight and Adam a few feet behind him, looking truly and utterly incredulous and apprehensive.

“Adam!” said Claudette excitedly, and the man leaned to be able to see her better past Philip at the sound of his name. _This is great! No one has to die—someone can finally take Adam back to the fire!_

“Can someone explain?” asked Adam, acknowledging her with a nod before he spoke.

“Please,” agreed Philip.

“You don’t know either?” asked Adam, looking equal parts shocked by the information and by the fact the Wraith was speaking conversationally to him.

“Why are you listening to us now?” asked Tapp, suspicious but not hostile, moving up until he was just barely a half-step in front of Kate, putting himself between everyone he could and Philip.

Philip opened his mouth answer and then stopped, and glanced at Claudette, and then back to the others. It was a lot to try to cover. “The Entity is not here. I was supposed to wait for that. I do not remember you, but I left myself a note,” said Philip after a second, trying to hit the highlights. He reached out a hand and then paused and looked back at the policeman. “This is not a weapon,” he said carefully.

Tapp nodded, and Philip summoned the bell back into his hand. Anchored to Claudette, he looked at her like he was thinking about asking her to let go, or potentially just carrying her with him, but instead he turned back to the others and tossed the bell to Tapp.

Tapp caught it easily without dropping his flashlight, and looked it over, finding the writing inside almost instantly. Behind him, Adam and Kate moved up to look too.

“You’re Arabic?” Adam asked him, looking up from the bell.

“No. That is Ajami,” said Philip awkwardly.

“And you _are_ the Wraith?” asked Adam, still very confused. “But you’re not going to kill everyone?”

“Yes,” said Philip, looking incredibly uncomfortable.

“Why not?” asked Adam, “Nothing here act like you.”

Philip hopelessly gave an _I don’t know how to answer that_ gesture with his free arm.

“Okay,” said Adam, taking what he could get. He glanced back at the bell Tapp was still studying, then up again at Philip. “Ajami, so you are…”

“Hausa,” answered Philip, still looking sort of miserable.

Adam looked surprised and a little excited. “Really? I studied a little. Where are you from?”

Philip looked more surprised. “Nigeria—you speak some? Nawa? How much—Where are you from?”

“Jamaica,” answered Adam, looking fascinated and instantly much less worried than he had been seconds ago. “Na sani kawai kadan. Na…duba shi a rubuce. Ina tsammanin wannan shine dukan kalmo da na sani. Ina tsammanin na ce…pronounced that all wrong. Definitely.”

“Yes,” answered Philip, looking very happy, “That was terrible, but you did say most of it. Jamaican?”

“Can you read this?” Tapp asked Adam, interrupting to turn the bell towards him.

“No,” said Adam, shaking his head. “Maybe a letter if I tried and got incredibly lucky, but I’m not a professor of linguistics. I only know the little Hausa I speak thanks to the libraries in Kingston, chance curiosity, and a thesis heritage study.”

“What’s it say?” asked Tapp, turning to Philip.

“For him to come find me when the Entity is gone, and that the Entity’s a liar,” answered Claudette. Philip nodded.

“Well,” said Kate, clapping Tapp on the shoulder in a very kind, unspoken suggestion to give it a rest, “Welcome back.” She walked past Tapp and held her hand out to Philip. He took it with his left hand, since Claudette was still holding onto his right hand, and Kate took it and used it to pull him into a quick hug.

Philip looked uncomfortable and cleared his throat awkwardly as Kate let go and smiled at him. He shot Claudette another concerned glance. She gave him a reassuring smile.

“Okay,” said Tapp, walking over and holding out the bell, “I guess you haven’t lied so far.”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Philip nervously, taking the bell.

“Why are you helping us?” asked Tapp, gaze intense and fixed, waiting for any tell that something was off in the other man’s face, and somehow seemingly unintimidated by the man above him. Tapp was really tall himself, but Philip still had almost a foot on him.

“He’s helping us?” Adam asked Kate.

“I’m so sorry, I know this is confusing,” Kate whispered back, “I’ll explain to you later.”

“I never wanted to hurt people. I did not before, and I don’t want to now,” said Philip, meeting Tapp’s gaze. “But I have. I can’t change that, but I can try to fix what I can now.”

“Okay,” said Tapp, studying him carefully. “You know what happens to you if this goes wrong?”

“I have nothing to lose,” replied Philip quietly, “Except the chance to undo things I have done.”

“It might be a trap,” continued Tapp.

Philip nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe. If you do not trust me, I can walk away. But I would choose to try to help you. Against my own risk. You are the people I have hurt,” he added, looking at the whole half-circle about him, starting with Kate and ending on Claudette, who was still locked around his wrist, “I will do what you decide,” he said, looking down at her, then back to the others.

Tapp glanced around the group. “Well, we all know how everyone back at the fire already voted. Adam?”

“I still don’t really know what’s happening,” said Adam, a little annoyed by that, “But he seems…uncannily fine. Considering he’s…killed me before.”

Philip started to make an uncomfortable, apologetic gesture with his free hand and then gave up.

“Okay. I guess it’s a risk worth taking,” agreed Tapp, holding out his hand for Philip to shake. Philip turned and gave Claudette a petitioning look this time, and she let go of his hand so he could shake Tapp’s properly.

“So. What do we do?” Philip asked as Tapp let go of his hand.

“Well, we want to figure a way out of here, permanently,” said Kate, stepping forward, “For all of us.”

“You have a way?” asked Adam, equal parts hopeful and surprised.

“No. Not yet,” answered Claudette, nodding at Kate to continue. Absently, she reached for Philip’s hand again. He looked down at her in surprise when she took it. She gave him a look like she was asking if it was okay. He looked a little confused, but nodded, and let her keep the hand.

“We want you to find out things from the Entity, if ya can,” said Kate, “Y’know, without lookin’ suspicious. In the meantime, we can talk with you whenever we’re in trials. Just, if the Entity’s there, come after us like normal, and we’ll go through with it like it’s a normal trial. If it ain’t, then just tell us, and we can talk instead. Although, either way we’re going to have to let some of us get sacrificed so it don’t notice your numbers droppin’,” she added, looking resigned.

“You want me to kill you?” asked Philip, looking a little sickened by the idea, “I mean—I know I have already, but it’s different. I knew something was wrong, but I have spoken to you now. To just…” he stopped, and looked out the broken stained glass window for a moment, collecting himself. “No, you’re right,” he said after a moment, looking exhausted. “It will know. Are you sure you want this?” he asked, glancing around the group.

Adam gave him an _I have no idea_ gesture. Kate and Tapp both nodded, so did Claudette when he looked down at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“You are?” Philip asked, shaking his head incredulously at her, “You are the ones that will be dying.”

“I know,” said Claudette, her string of nightmares playing through her mind and opening a cold void of anxiety deep in her chest, “But I think it’d be harder for me to do what you’re stuck with.”

Philip froze for just a second, then looked away. He hadn’t answered, but she thought he probably felt the same way.

“If it shows up mid-trial or something, we need some kinda sign. I mean, if you can, just attack one of us, but to let us know might also be good to have maybe a hand sign or somethin’,” continued Kate after a moment to make sure the other two had finished their exchange. “Between trials, if you can get any information from the Entity about how it works, or what it wants, or how any of this place is set up—maybe why it chose us, or when it’s gonna get a new killer or survivor, then do. There’s got to be a way back to our world whenever it grabs someone new at least, right? For a second anyway? But don’t push it,” she added, “Better to take awhile than let it know you’re up to somethin’.”

Philip nodded.

“Dwight’s really the idea guy,” Kate continued, “And we haven’t all gone over what we want you do because we thought we had two trials to go, ‘stead a one. I know the general idea, but I also know he’s got other stuff goin’ on too.”

“Which is Dwight?” asked Philip.

“The one with glasses and a white shirt,” said Claudette, resisting the urge to tell him it was the other person he said reminded him of himself, “The hurt one.”

“Oh,” said Philip, looking a little surprised. “He is your leader?”

The others except Adam nodded, although Tapp’s was a little resigned.

“Until we see you again, I guess just find out anythin’ ya can,” said Kate, “While bein’ careful.”

“You might look at the basement,” Claudette hurried to add. The others looked at her. “I uh,” she faltered a little under so many gazes at once, “There was a journal I read, by one of the old survivors. Benedict Baker, and he was talking about this other guy—some kind of scientist named Vigo. He thought that this whole place was kind of like an atom’s nucleus. Or…Like a bunch of doors off of one hallways. All the places we’re in, they’re connected, but to some central point more often than each other. If that makes sense.”

Adam looked fascinated by this. Kate and Tapp surprised. Philip intent.

“There are—well, he _thought_ there were anchor points—or, the parts that would be doors in a hallway analogy. The parts closer to the Entity itself. At the middle of the circle. And that our campfire was one, and the basements in trials were other ones. We never have time during trials to go check out basements, and I’m always afraid that the Entity might notice if we did, because we aren’t supposed to be there, but you have one right? In your…home you go to between trials?”

“Yes,” said Philip, “I do. It is usually where the Entity wants to meet if we speak. So your Vigo’s theory may hold water.”

“You allowed to leave your area?” Kate asked Philip thoughtfully.

“Between trials?” he asked, looking over at her. “Yes, but I don’t. There is nowhere to go. We are not supposed to hunt you between trials unless there is some special reason to hunt someone down. That has not happened in a long time. I could go to where some of the other reapers stay, but some I cannot. It does not want us to kill eachother.”

“Could you get to us, even if you ain’t supposed to?” asked Kate.

“Not without getting spotted and in trouble, definitely. At all, I am not sure. I have not tried,” he responded, thinking through the answer as he went.

“We’ll have to settle for during trials then,” said Tapp, “Which is going to be a hassle, but probably safest anyway.”

“What now, though?” asked Adam. “Do we just. Leave?”

 “You do,” said Claudette, “And you have to take one of us with you, so that we can finally get you back to the campfire with us.”

“Least one of us needs to get sacrificed or mori’d though,” said Kate, folding her arms across her chest, “So we don’t look suspicious. Wouldn’t want the Entity to feel like it’s got to monitor the next few trials or somethin’. I don’t mind goin’.”

“Oh,” said Philip, the immediateness of what that meant setting in much harder than the suggestion of it earlier had.

“I can too,” said Tapp, sighing. “Might as well get used to it.”

“I can go,” interjected Claudette, “You don’t have to.”

Philip gave her an unhappy look, almost a little shaken at that idea, close to pleading.

“I’m goin’,” said Kate, “You and Claudette can draw straws or somethin’ if you want.”

“Please,” said Claudette, looking up at Tapp, “I’ve been getting it easy in trials because of you and you know it. You died in the second one we had with him saving my life. I’m going to feel bad forever if I keep letting you do this kind of thing.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a kid,” said Tapp, giving her a look like she’d been given by teachers before, “Of course I’m not just gonna let some freak kill you so I can run and try to escape.”

“I’m twenty-two,” said Claudette indignantly, giving it her best guess.

“At least look for supplies first,” said Philip unhappily, “There are usually chests around a trial you could…” he stopped as Kate picked up her flashlight from before and clicked it on and off. “Oh, you have,” he said quietly, shut down.

“Let’s fight about it at the exit,” offered Claudette. “We’ve all been here a pretty long time already.”

After a quick exchange, the others agreed, and as one the small group turned and headed back down the stairs. Claudette waited for a second as the others went, looking around the chapel she’d never really had the time to study before.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” she asked Philip, who was the only other one who had hung back. He looked around at the stained glass windows, torn red carpets, the lit candlesticks, the hanging chandelier, the white stone walls.

“It is a sad place,” he replied. “Not meant to look like this.”

“I know,” she said, “But looking at it, I can see what it used to look like. In some ways I think it’s prettier because it’s still here after all this.”

He shrugged. “Come on,” he said, motioning for her to follow him. Claudette took a few last seconds to enjoy the sight she had never had the peace to really see before, then she did, reaching for his hand when she caught up to him.

“Again?” he said, looking over at her in surprise.

“You don’t want me to?” she asked, looking back up at him, hoping the answer was no.

“I…Don’t know,” he answered, looking confused. “Why do you want to?”

“I guess it makes me feel safer,” said Claudette, thinking that over, “Because I can, without you hurting me. It helps me know it’s real.”

He blinked, trying to figure that all out. “Because you are used to being hurt by me?” he asked after a second, glancing down at her as they trailed after the other three.

Claudette shook her head. “No. I get scared easy. By everything. You’re really big, and you could be scarier than a lot of things here, but you don’t want to hurt me when you have the choice. So it makes me feel safer.”

“Oh,” said Philip again. He was quiet for a few seconds, then she saw him smile, just for a second.

_You can smile,_ she thought happily, watching the exit gate getting closer ahead.

“Alright,” said Kate once they were inside, about as close to the exit as they could get with Philip there and without crossing over.

“You know how this works?” Claudette asked Adam, looking up at him. He looked like he didn’t. “You just have to leave at the same time as someone else, and you have to want to go with them, and they have to want you to come too. Which all of us do, right?” she asked.

The other two made sounds of assent.

“Great,” said Claudette, and she rammed her shoulder into Tapp, knocking him past the burrier. “You better go,” she said, motioning frantically to Adam as she tried to right herself.

Catching on, Kate pushed Adam through after Tapp. “Sorry,” she called after him, “It’s fine though—yell at us at the campfire. Just decide you both want to go to Tapp’s fire.”

Tapp whirled on them angrily and slammed his fist against the metal bars that kept the killers from following them out, and survivors who had fled from coming back in.

“Sorry,” said Claudette, actually feeling guilty as she looked up at his anger with her.

He sighed and leaned forward, resting his head against the bars he was holding onto. “Damn fool kid,” he said less angrily, looking over at her as he started to fade. “You _are_ goin to get yelled at.”

She nodded. Then they were gone.

“Sorry,” said Claudette again, turning to Philip and the waiting Kate. “He wasn’t gonna let me do it even if I won at rock, paper, scissors, or drew straws.”

“That’s probably true,” said Kate, arms crossed. “Come on, then,” she said to Philip, turning and walking out of the exit. “It matter if we get sacrificed or killed?”

“It would be unusual if no one was killed,” said Philip haltingly, like he didn’t want to, following her much more slowly. “With permission given.”

“Well, it almost happened anyway. Let’s finish it,” offered Kate, standing in front of him.

“You want me to just…?” Philip hesitated, looking down at his hands and the sickle he was gripping. Pained.

“It’s alright,” said Kate, putting a hand on his shoulder, “I won’t even feel it.” Even from a couple yards away where she was standing, Claudette saw him flinch at the touch.

Philip took a breath, then drew back his arm to hit her. He stayed there, breathing hard, arm drawn back for several seconds.

“Easier if I don’t look at you?” asked Kate, voice patient and kind.

“Maybe,” he replied, voice strained.

She turned her back to him and waited. Philip took a few shallow breaths and swung, freezing the motion halfway to her back and stopping. He brought the sickle back up again, took one deep breath, and brought the it down hard into her shoulder.

Kate let out a mostly choked-back cry, and stumbled forward. Without looking up at him, she knelt, and then lay in the grass of the chapel yard.

“It’s okay,” Claudette heard Kate say, face still turned away from Philip. “You can do it. Just don’t stop once you get started.”

Philip took a step forward, and then took it back, arms twitching. He half turned away, placing the blade of his sickle in his hands and breathing hard. She saw him look up at the sky for a few seconds, fingers closed around the blade, and then he walked over beside Kate and raised his blade. Her face was turned away from him, but Claudette saw Kate close her eyes as his shadow fell over her. He swung hard, bringing the flat of his blade against the back of her skull with enormous force, and Kate went still. Shaking, he brought the blade up again and then down into Kate’s back, again, and again, and again, finally stopping with her back torn to shreds beneath him, blood spattered against his legs and chest and face, and he stood then, breathing hard, and turned and saw here, waiting there by the rubble in the church yard.

He ran a bloody forearm across his face, like he was trying to clean it, but all it did was leave a smear, and took a step towards her, over Kate’s body, then another, then he stopped. Blood spattered and terrifying in the foggy moonlight, he held out a cautious hand towards her and waited.

Claudette let go of the low wall she’d been holding onto and walked towards him slowly, not stopping until she had reached his hand. When she was close, Claudette reached out her hand and placed it in his. He took the hand gently.

“Do you need to do that to me?” asked Claudette quietly, looking down at Kate.

He shook his head. “It would probably prefer a sacrifice.”

She nodded and looked around. There was a hook, not far, up on a hill. Probably the one he had put Kate on earlier. Philip followed her gaze to it and nodded, turning to lead the way.

As she started to follow him, one of her feet caught on a sharp chunk of stone and she let out a little yelp at the pain. He turned in surprise to see what had happened, and looked down at her as she picked up the foot to look at the damage.

“What happened to your shoes?” he asked, letting go of her hand and kneeling beside her to get a look at the cut.

She laughed, the idea of explaining that one to him hitting her as incredibly funny. _Oh, I tore them up so I could tape them to your chest._ “It’s a long story,” she said instead, cleaning a little of the blood away with her thumb to see the cut better. “It seems to work for you.”

“I guess,” said Philip, “But it does not seem to work for you.”

“I don’t have much practice,” she defended herself. “But anyway, it’s not far. I’ll be okay.” She took a step as he watched. It hurt, but she did it, biting down on her lip to make sure she didn’t make any noise over it. She took a few more steps, walking unevenly, but getting it done.

“Here,” said Philip catching up to her in one stride and putting a hand on her shoulder to stop her, then kneeling beside her.

She stared at him.

“I can carry you,” he offered. Then, more awkwardly, “If you want.”

Claudette’s face lit up and she nodded. She moved over behind him and climbed on. He hooked his arms around her knees to hold her, and lifted her up.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Claudette, looking around her from up on his shoulders. “Wow. Everything’s so cool from up here. You get to live like this?”

“You are a strange girl, little sister,” said Philip, looking up at her as he started to walk, but there was almost a light tone to his voice. “But yes, it is nice. Except that everyone finds you worrying as soon as you enter a room.”

“No one ever finds me worrying, even if I try,” replied Claudette, leaning forward against his shoulders.

“You are not very scary,” Philip agreed, climbing the hill slowly.

“Well, neither are you,” said Claudette as he came to a stop at the top of the hill. He knelt and let go, and she carefully climbed off his back.

He stood then, and looked at the hook beside them. The wind moved past them with a chill and caught his cloak, rippling it. Philip turned to look at her then, his expression grim and worn. He reached out slowly and placed his hands on her shoulders, trying to steel himself to pick her up.

“Oh, wait,” said Claudette suddenly, remembering.

He let go of her and withdrew his arms, waiting. Claudette dug through Quentin’s coat pockets and brought her hand out with a clover chain. Philip blinked at the wreath and looked from it to her, surprised and confused.

“It’s for you,” she explained, holding it up, “I made it. Awhile ago, when we were trying to convince you to give us a chance, I made a lot of these for you. And since you forgot us again, I made more. To give you.”

Philip looked silently at the flowers, glowing white eyes flickering as he blinked at it again, and then slowly he reached out a hand for it and took it, running his thumb over the slightly wilted flowers in his palm.

“Here,” she said, “Bend down.”

He stooped, and she took the chain out of his hand and put it around his neck, smiling up at him and her work as he raised his head again.

“There,” said Claudette, “Where it’s supposed to be. Now I’m ready.”

Philip swallowed, and he was silent for a few seconds. When he finally spoke, his voice was choked, like he was having great difficulty speaking. “I will have to go back to acting, once I put you up there. It will come.”

She nodded. He moved his arms back to her shoulders gently, ready to picked her up, and held for a second, looking at the hook and not following through.

“Thank you,” he managed finally, glancing down at the wreath around his neck, “For this.” She smiled at him, and he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

In one quick motion, Philip lifted her above his head and ran her through the hook.

Claudette had hoped that maybe, somehow it would not hurt as much as she had expected, but it did. The metal tore through her shoulder and she screamed at the pain, flailing instinctively at the familiar but never less awful sensation of metal and torn skin and muscle, and weight against your collarbone.

When she stopped moving, she saw Philip looking up at her from a few feet in front of her. He took a couple of steps back, watching her, little white flowers a stark contrast against the blood spatter on his chest beneath them.

She smiled at him, trying hard to look brave. He met her eyes and cloaked, vanishing into the night air as the Entity’s claws descended around her. It was always fast if you were the last one standing. It came for her viciously, talons snapping at her, and she did her best to catch them and hold them back, fighting for survival even though it was pointless especially this time, but it only took a few seconds for one of the claws to make it past her and sink into her stomach, sending waves of pain rippling up her body. She crumpled forward against it, and felt herself separate and fade, being drawn upwards with the thing in the sky.

It hurt. She thought about that as she died and began to disappear.

It hurt like it always did, but she wasn’t afraid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hausa has two written languages, one with a Latin alphabet (boko) and one with an Arabic based script (ajami). They were both pretty common until the 60s, when the Latin script became primary. Ajami is still used sometimes for religious, formal, or special writings though. Because of the etymology of his name along with the little bit we know about Vigo in lore, it seems a decent guess that he would have been of Sami heritage. Their traditional religion for the Sami people is a form of animism or shamanism, with mediators who act to communicate with spirits on behalf of the people, sometimes protecting them from them, called Noaidi. The name Vigo itself can be interpreted as having several different sources, but it likely means "to fight". 
> 
> I originally drafted three different versions of this chapter, the first with more coverage of other Philip trials from various survivors, the second with a little bit of Philip 2.3, or the version who still had memories from meeting the survivors, and then afterwords following things from his perspective, but the first one didn't really hit the beats I was going for, and the second was too clunky, so eventually I went back to Claudette. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out; I hope it works for you all too. On a side note, Benedict was really fun to write, because the language he uses is so old and formal, and he's very verbose and dramatic, but in such a sincere way. I love the snippets from him in-game, and his one about wondering if he would deserve to escape knowing he was leaving others has always stuck with me in particular. Thank you all again for all the feedback and support! Next few chapters should be a little lighter. Thanks again, seriously. You guys mean the world to me.


	30. The Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Philip back and on their side, the survivors can start putting plans into action. And they do.

“Philip’s back!” screamed Meg, slamming into Jake as he burned into existence from his trial, sending them both careening to the ground.

“Ow, why?” said Jake through the pain of having the breath knocked out of him.

“What?” asked Laurie, appearing beside him with an arm around Dwight.

“They talked!” said Meg, sitting up on top of Jake who gave her a tired, annoyed look, waiting for her to get off of him. “He left himself a note, and Claudette, and Kate, and---Oh! Adam’s here too! We finally got him!” she exclaimed, gesturing behind her grandly to where he stood paused mid-conversation with Ace, Tapp, and Kate, with the same level of presentation flair she’d have given showing off a rare Pokémon catch.

“Meg, please get off,” said Jake. She didn’t.

“He’s back—you talked to him early?” asked Dwight, adjusting his repaired glasses and trying to catch his breath as he did his best to work through what he was hearing.

“Not exactly,” said Claudette, who’d been in the middle of explaining some of this to Nea, who’d been killed in the trial several minutes earlier and made it back first. “He left himself a note and figured some of it out. So he talked to us early, actually.” She was beaming.

The mood in the group hadn’t been this light since the last episode of Welcome to Hell with Meg Thomas. Which had been a group discussion on _Grease_ that had turned into an attempt to explain all three _High School Musical_ films to Laurie.

“That—wow, I mean, this is great,” said Dwight, turning to Laurie and then looking down at Jake for confirmation. “Okay, we should get ready on our end. Now.”

“What’ve you got in mind?” asked Feng.

“I—Oh, I’m sorry,” said Dwight, catching sight of Adam and circling back to the second thing Meg had said. “Hi, I’m Dwight—we’ve met, but not formally—thanks for dragging me around that one Wraith trail. Sorry I think I got you killed,” he added, holding out his hand.

Adam stepped forward and took it. “I actually made it out of that,” said Adam, letting go. “Good to finally be here. I have met everyone except…” he turned to Laurie, giving her a questioning look.

“Laurie,” she answered the unasked question, shaking his hand herself.

“Laurie. A pleasure,” said Adam, “I’m Adam Francis.”

“Adam Francis,” she repeated, looking awkward about having left off her last name and going in to re-try that. “Laurie Strode.”

“Has anyone explained this to you yet?” asked Dwight, interposing into the conversation much to Laurie’s relief.

“If you mean with the Wraith, I know about half of what is going on, I think,” said Adam, glancing at Ace, who nodded affirmation, “But it’s enough for the moment. Go ahead and get what you need done.”

“Okay,” said Dwight, turning to the others. “So—”

“Meg, can you please move,” said Jake again, interrupting.

“I mean, I _can,_ but do I _want_ to?” answered Meg, propping one of her feet up on his chest.

“Okay,” said Jake, shoving her off him and standing up. She made an unhappy sound as she hit the ground, but perked back up when offered her a hand and pulled her up after him.

“Good?” asked Dwight, waiting for them to settle. Jake gave him a nod. “Okay,” Dwight continued, “I know we haven’t all talked through this all as a group, although I’ve gone over bits and pieces I think with everyone. That’s been because it seems like a good idea to not discuss this _constantly_ out loud in case the Entity ever checks up on _us,_ but I guess now’s the time. Also, after this I want to hear everything about what just happened with the Wraith,” he added, glancing over at Claudette, who nodded. “Anyway, here’s what I’ve got.”

 

* * *

 

It had been a rough couple of days for Philip.

Killing another human being is not a simple thing. No matter what you think before you do it. Killing someone, even someone who deserved it, isn’t easy for a human being to come to terms with. No matter who someone was, cutting off any chance, any future, any person they could have become, that is a choice which bears weight. Murder weighs heavy.

It is not always the wrong choice, but it is never easy. Not in its fullness. The person it ends, the people effected by knowing them, the change an act like that takes as a toll. It changes you. It leaves scars.

To kill accidentally is a different beast, but not an easier one.

The guilt—the responsibility—they are not the same. The regret is just as strong, though. The knowledge you have killed someone because you were careless. Or ignorant. The lives are still lost. The people will never change, or grow, or continue. The people they loved and who loved them will still have to go on, or give up. The difference is the wondering. What you did wrong, how you missed it, why, what’s wrong with you, how much it was your fault? Were you negligent, could you have reacted in time, have noticed, have prevented? How much is your fault. Which part. What is the right amount of guilt. What do you do to try to repair, or to go on? What do you owe? Murder is not easier, but it is more clearly defined. Its solace is also its cost. You know what you did, and you know why. The deed haunts you, the responsibility, the fact you chose it. The demons you face are those demanding justification, not answers.

Philip had done both.

Coming to terms with killing people, in any way, for a normal human being, is beyond difficult.

And he had never really tried before.

Everything that had gone wrong had gone wrong minutes before he’d been found by the Entity and given a purpose—he’d been given an answer, a path to redemption, before ever having to really ask those questions himself. He hadn’t known that in its realm, in his attempt to make right, he’d been doing the same again. But he had done it all the same, and now there was nothing between him and the people he’d killed before, and with them were so many new ones—ones he had to remember better. Faces and names this time. So much worse. Dozens to go along with the one he’d tried to save from a trunk.

And now he had to figure it out himself.

How to go on.

Because his old answer had been a lie.

Philip had nothing but time suddenly, time demanding justification and answers, so he thought about it. He tried, as hard as he could, to find an answer. To do justice by himself for the things he’d done.

Azarov had deserved it. He knew that, and he didn’t regret it. He would have to live with the fact that he was a murderer, with the memory of watching a man’s ribcage crush between metal walls and the bone break free from his forearm and tear through the skin as he had tried to hold the walls back to save his life. Those images would stay with him. A slow death, cruel with his hand on the button that could have stopped it, watching it all and choosing to let it finish. It had been deserved, and Philip still believed that, but he knew at the same time that those images would haunt him forever.

That, he could find peace with in time.

The others, though.

The others…

He used to imagine them, the first few weeks he’d been in the Entity’s realm. The only one he’d ever seen—ever really known of, had been the young man he’d tried to save. His dreams used to fill faces on crushed bodies in cars with the features of strangers he had passed on the street in Wisconsin, shattered skulls smashed between crumpled bumpers and crushed tail lights, screaming through gags for help as the crusher came on, slow, cruel, pitiless, bones breaking through the skin on their arms and legs snapping as they tried to stop the walls like Azarov had. After time, they’d sometimes been other faces. People he knew from home, the humans here in the Entity’s realm, himself.

He could never apologize to them, or try to explain. What would he have said, to their families? “I’m sorry”? “I avenged them”? If it had been his family, someone offering those words to him, would he have cared?

That was harder. That was much harder than Azarov. Philip wanted, with this new information he’d been given about the survivors in the Entity’s realm, to believe that he was really just incredibly stupid—that he had made mistakes because he was unintelligent, foolish. That would hurt, but it was forgivable.

But it wasn’t that easy, and the added guilt made him go over old memories, searching for things he imagined had been there. He could no longer tell if memories were real or constructed, and if he’d failed to notice things, or if they’d even been there at all. Both at his job in the autoyard and here in the Entity’s realm.

These new ones—the survivors here, they were at least still alive. He had a chance with them. A chance to try to make things right.

It hurt, going over things he remembered. The things he had done. The little girl, Claudette, he remembered the first time he’d seen her, and how she’d been too afraid of him to do anything but crawl away and beg for her life. Why had none of that ever mattered to him? Could anyone be that stupid? The other one who’d reminded him so much of himself, the boy with glasses and the dress shirt, the first time he’d seen him he had asked Philip for such a simple thing. Not even to let him go. How had that not gotten through to him? Such a human act, and he’d still seen them as the monsters he wanted them to be. The more he took them apart in his head, the more his own actions didn’t make sense to him, and it left him feeling crushed. Things he would have sworn on anything he loved or believed in that he would never, ever do, he had done. Like it was nothing. _Unknowing Executioner._

The girl had said not to feel bad about this, but how the hell was he supposed to do that? No matter what he’d done to help them since that he’d forgotten, how could it be enough to counteract the rest? To wipe out the things he did remember?

Being alone had always had its ups and its downs for him in the Entity’s realm. He had liked not having anyone to fear, to answer to, to push him. There had been the Entity, of course, but he had thought of that differently, because of what it was. It had been lonely, obviously, but solitude offered its own kind of peace. And now, suddenly, for the first time since he had arrived, the positive sides of that were evaporating around him. There was nothing for him to do but sit and think over the horrible things he had done, alone in the garage he used to work in, physically trapped in the past he wanted more than anything to escape. There was no one to ask about anything he wondered, or did not remember. Nothing to distract him. Even looking over his old journals just depressed him.

On top of it all, killing two of them after knowing them a little had not been easy. The thought of having to do that again, maybe many times, was haunting him, a constant anxiety at the back of his skull. And these people—they were all so forgiving about it. Which made it better and worse at the same time.

 _What am I supposed to do?_ Philip wondered, running his hands along broken boards in the basement, trying to follow the only instructions he had been asked to adhere to. He wanted to try. He wanted so badly to find something to do to make things even a little less indebted, less horrible. Walking up the stairs and wandering through the garage, he ran a hand over the dusty rear window of the car sitting there and caught his own reflection dimly in the tiny patch of dust-free glass and stared at it. _I don’t even look like a person anymore,_ he realized, heart sinking.

He reached out a hand and touched the reflection staring back at him, glowing white eyes, chipped mask. _Who are you now?_ he wondered, _You can’t still be me. Can you?_

The glowing white eyes flickered in his reflection as he blinked, and he tilted his head, studying the face looking back. _I would be afraid of me. Maybe I am,_ he thought, slowly removing his hand.

 _What would I have done, before?_ Philip wondered, turning to look at the garage. _Back when I was just Philip. Before I had done any of this? If I had messed up so badly—to try and make things better?_

He hoped that was still a question he knew how to answer.

 

* * *

 

 

Dwight gasped, sitting up with a jolt, staring down at his hands. _What? What—I._ But no, they were there. Shaky hands, un-bloodied. He was okay.

Pulling himself unsteadily to his feet, Dwight turned to look around him. _Okay. Okay, it’s just the woods,_ he thought, nervously adjusting his glasses, trying to calm down his racing heart. _Just woods. The assholes just ditched you out here. All you have to do is walk home._

Cautiously, Dwight started to walk in a random direction, trying to convince himself the guess had been based on something more promising than the completely arbitrary guess it had been.

Had he imagined it? There had been—there had been a man, in a mask. He had died. –That—that had to have been a dream, right? _Obviously,_ Dwight told himself, trying to believe it, _You’re not dead. See?_ He looked down at his chest and ran his hands down himself to make sure the injures that had been there were really gone. _You’re being ridiculous. You’re fine. You’re very not dead._

It was just the woods. His dream had looked different, right? There had been a building. This was just woods. And big rocks. And way too dark, and too foggy, and it sort of looked different than he remembered but that didn’t matter. He was hungover. It was just the woods. Just the woods, and a bad dream from some really bad alcohol.

 _But that didn’t feel like a dream,_ a voice inside his head told him worriedly, _That really hurt. That hurt more than anything that’s ever happened to me, so how did I dream up something worse than what I’ve really had happen?_

“You’re imagining it,” Dwight muttered to himself under his breath. _Be logical. You’re not dead, so it didn’t happen._

He couldn’t make his shoulders stop shaking though. He was right. It had felt real.

 _Just keep walking,_ Dwight told himself, _You’ll get out, you’ll go home, crack open—no, no that’s a bad idea. Crack an ice pack and go to bed, maybe._

There was a movement behind him, and Dwight froze and then spun around, trying to see what it had been, but there was nothing there.

“Hello?” He had meant to call that out, in case someone else from work was still around to hear him, but it caught in his throat and came out a barely-whispered, choked volume. _Stop it, you huge idiot,_ he chided himself, swallowing and trying to quell the panic in his chest, _There’s nothing out there. You got drunk on moonshine and had a nightmare, man up about this._

“Is someone there?” he called again, still quiet, but this time closer to what he’d meant it to sound like.

The tall trees around him cast long shadows and were missing too many leaves, but he could still hear the wind whispering through them. Somewhere above him a crow cawed and took flight. Dwight turned his head and watched it go, breathing out a small sigh of relief.

“Maybe that was it,” he whispered to himself, watching the bird disappear. _Why am I relieved about this? If it had been a person, that would be better. I’m lost as hell._

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Dwight tried for service again, knowing full well there wouldn’t be any. There wasn’t. “God damn it,” he muttered, shoving the device back in his pocket. “Verizon nation-wide coverage, my ass.”

Shoving his hands in his slacks pockets for warmth, Dwight kept walking, trying to figure out what direction was the right one to go. Ahead he saw out of the corner of his eye what looked like a flicker of light, and turned towards it hopefully. _Light means power—means a house or a car or someone with a flashlight, right?_

He broke into a slow jog and rounded a large boulder hopefully, only to freeze. “No,” he whispered, astounded and horrified and disbelieving all at once, staring at the little generator nestled against a rock, light pole attached to the top. A wave of memories he was actively trying to repress slammed down against him and he took a step back.

The huge man in the mask, the meat cleaver. The taste and smell of blood and the feeling of steel digging into his calf when a bear trap had slammed shut around it. The meat hook, the blood, the thing in the sky.

“No, no. What the fuck,” he whispered, repeatedly opening and closing his eyes to try to wake up. He smacked himself, praying that what was in front of him would change. “No, no, fuck—this can’t be real,” he told himself, heart racing. His face stung from the impact of his hand, but nothing was changing. “Wake up, wake up, this isn’t real,” he told himself, backing into a tree and feeling the all too real rough bark, the smell of the massive oak and the dirt, “Fuck, please, god. Please let me wake up.”

Dwight turned, trying to press himself against the tree for cover, and looked past it—looked for the man in the mask, praying he wasn’t there, but hoping that if he was, he would see him this time before he was spotted himself. But there wasn’t anything—or anyone. Just the wind and the tress and—

A shiver ran down his spine as Dwight felt something move behind him again. He went rigid and slowly turned to look behind him, afraid of what he would see but knowing he had to look. But when he turned, there was nothing. Just open air.

“You’re losing your mind, Dwight,” he told himself, painfully quiet, trying to choke back terror, unable to stop his legs from trembling. He looked back past the tree, then at the generator. Slowly, he took his phone out again and dialed 911, begging with every ounce of belief he had ever had that the call would go through.

It didn’t.

Slowly, Dwight lowered his hand and put the phone back in his pocket. The generator still stood there, inviting. Something in him wanted to walk over to it and try to turn it on, but he had no idea why, and every ounce of common sense he’d ever been given saw that motivationless inclination as a warning sing and was telling him to get the fuck out of there instead.

There was the snap of a twig being stepped on, and Dwight jumped and turned to face it, trying to find the source, breathing hard, but there was nothing. Just grass swaying in the wind. Carefully, he edged towards the sound. It had only been about ten feet away. As he reached where it had come from, he found a broken stick, laying on the ground, a little sunk into the soft earth from the weight of a foot.

There was a sound like footsteps and Dwight shot up and whipped around, scanning the terrain, looking for the source, but again, there was nothing. “Hello?” he tried, praying no one would answer, “Is someone…?” he stopped. _What are you doing? If someone’s there, you don’t want them to find you. You gotta run._

The grass in front of him moved then, like something was walking through it, and Dwight took a step back, staring at it. “What the fuck is happening?” he whispered, backing away as the motion kept coming towards him, squinting at it.

It came faster suddenly, and Dwight stumbled back as fear came with it and the instinct to flee, tripping over a rock and slamming his head as he hit the ground hard, landing flat on his back. He dragged himself back up to his arms quickly, looking for the movement, and seeing nothing anymore. Dwight started to pull himself back up to his feet when there came the chiming of a bell, and he froze as above him, a huge, towering thing burned into existence, like it was melting out of invisibility into reality, all sparks and height and death. Something like a person, but not, glowing eyes and tree-like, fingers closer around a blade made out of bones and chunks of metal.

“Oh god,” Dwight choked out, crawling backwards as fast as he could, trying to struggle back to his feet and get away from it at the same time.

The thing above him swung its blade at him and Dwight raised his arms to shield himself and felt the sudden, unbearable pain of his arms being sliced open, and he screamed and drew his hands back, staring in horror at the white of bone in his arms past torn flesh and gushing blood.

In his fear, Dwight made it to his feet somehow and ran, tripping over rocks and sticks, trying to find anywhere to hide, or to fend it off, but the thing came after him so fast. There were walls ahead, and Dwight ran for the red bricks, leaping a low sill in one of them and falling over himself, not used to that kind of action, landing flat on the ground, instinctively putting out his arms to catch himself, not realizing in time how much that would hurt. His injured arms took the shock and he screamed in pain, curling responsively for a second, cradling his arms, and then forcing himself back up, arms throbbing and terrifying him as they continued to run blood down his arms onto his pants. _Oh god, I’m going to die, oh god. This can’t be happening._

It was coming, tearing through the brush behind him—he could hear branches snap and pounding feet and there was an overwhelming heartbeat he thought was his own, getting louder and louder with every inch that thing gained on him, and Dwight thought maybe his heart was going to explode with fear for a second, it was so loud. In his panic, Dwight spotted a locker and had a tiny, fleeting moment of hope and ran for it, tearing the door open and sliding inside, closing the door behind him and peering out the slits, trying to stop himself from breathing so raggedly and shaking. Fighting to be silent.

Through the slits, he saw the thing that had been chasing him step over the low wall he’d failed to vault right. It looked down at the ground and the blood he’d been leaking, and with a deep, bottoming-out fear, Dwight looked down and realized the blood from his arms might be leaking out the base of the locker. _Please don’t look, please don’t look,_ he prayed silently, pressing his back as far into the locker as he could.

The thing with glowing white eyes turned its head and walked towards the locker, pausing in front of it, and Dwight stopped breathing. _Please, god, please._

It turned in a slow half-circle, looking, and then slipped past the locker, looking beyond the wall, and Dwight heard the chiming of a bell and the overwhelming sound of his heartbeat pounding in his head died down and he could breathe again.

 _Oh thank god,_ he prayed silently in relief, _Oh, what the fuck was that?_

Suddenly, the locker door tore open, and Dwight felt something close around his throat, and before his eyes, the towering thing burned into existence before him again, narrowed white glowing slit eyes focused on him, fingers closed around his neck, cutting off his ability to breathe.

Struggling with his injured arms and every ounce of strength the fear of dying had given him, Dwight tried to pry the hand off his neck, kicking at the huge man in front of him and thrashing about wildly, body struggling to fill its lungs with pressure closing off his throat.

 _No, no, no!_ Dwight thought, terrified, _God, please—I’m going to die! I’m really going to die!_ The man flung him up over its shoulder and held him in place with an arm while he tried to kick at its chest and tear its arm off with his hands, doing everything he could to break free, fighting wildly. The thing with glowing white eyes turned and Dwight realized in his fear that it was taking him towards a huge meat hook, and his terrified mind played back what had happened last time and for a second he lost the will to fight and froze, too scared to do anything. Then he was fighting with everything he had, trying to break its grasp on him, with the concrete knowledge that if he failed, it was going to kill him.

“Wait,” shouted Dwight desperately, trying to pry the massive arm off him, “Don’t do this, please!”

It didn’t respond, and he couldn’t move its arm. _I’m going to die._ “Please!” Dwight begged, struggling with all his might, “Please, don’t kill me! At least tell me what you want! At least tell me why!”

It reached the hook and dropped Dwight off its shoulders and into its arms, shifting its weight to throw him up on the meat hook.

“Please, please, I’m begging you!” said Dwight, trying to cling to the hands, panic running through his veins and cutting off every sensation but fear.

He felt the metal spike tear through his chest and screamed, body reflexively contorting at the pain as it went into shock, his hands still latched onto the hands of the thing that had done this to him.

For a second he didn’t let go, fingers clinging to the monster with a death grip. It looked down at his hand as his body twitched, trying to come to terms with the huge chunk of metal sticking out of him and overwhelming his senses with more pain than his body knew how to feel. Then it raised one of its own arms and pried his fingers off, leaving him to dangle.

“P—please,” Dwight managed, trying to reach out for it as it turned to go, shaking uncontrollably. “Don’t just leave me.”

He didn’t know why that was what he was most afraid of, or why it would be better to have the monster near him than to be alone, but it was the only thought his brain could finish. It remembered last time. Last time when he’d been hung on a hook, bleeding out slowly, alone, calling out for help until his voice was hoarse. Afraid, alone. Until the thing in the sky had come down and killed him. And that had been the worst part. That there had been no one—nothing. He had been afraid and in agony and so utterly alone in all of it.

It looked at him for a second, the thing with glowing eyes. Like it was trying to figure him out. Then it vanished, like it had before, with the sound of a bell. And Dwight was alone again. Left to die by himself.

 

* * *

 

 

Jake was breathing at a calm, steady pace, and there was something reassuring about it.

Solid and dependable, in his own way, even when he was asleep.

Dwight was doing better. He could stand on his own, and walk a little. It wore him out like hell, and he still had dizzy spells and running wasn’t something he could really pull off, but at least he was usually strong enough to find somewhere to hide in trials by himself now. At least until he got injured…

 _It’s good,_ Dwight told himself, leaning against Jake’s chest and holding out one of his hands and moving it on command, watching the ease with which he could do that now. He tried to believe it, because it really _was_ good, but at the same time, in trials it sure didn’t feel like it. Practicing walking was helping. The headaches were still bad, but much less frequent. _I’m getting better, at least,_ Dwight thought, lowering the hand. Plus, all of this stuff with the Wraith was really, _really_ good for them.

Claudette seemed a lot better too—she’d been worrying him lately. And he hadn’t been in a Nightmare trial for about a week and a half, so that was _damn_ good. Especially fucked up like this.

Beside him, Jake shifted in his sleep and his face twitched, concentrated suddenly. Dwight wondered what he was dreaming about, and if he should wake him up. Using Jake as a pillow had started being a thing when he couldn’t sit up on his own, and it just hadn’t really stopped. _It’s probably gonna get weird, though,_ thought Dwight, glancing at Jake. A little regretfully, because it was comfortable and reassuring and he didn’t really want to stop.

 _Not really fair, though,_ thought Dwight, glancing across the campfire at where Meg was leaned up against Claudette and Kate in a little pile.

Dwight had never really had _super_ close friends. Back in reality. There had been people he’d called best friends a couple of times in his life, but in reality, they’d just been people he went to school with, or lived near. Two people he’d called girlfriends—one of which might have actually counted, for a couple months in college. Mostly, he’d been alone. Trying to convince himself he liked that, or that there was some good reason, and it was everyone else’s problem. It had made it more bearable. But it hadn’t been true, and he’d always kind of known that. The only person who’d ever really tried to be close to him was his mom, and he’d spent most of his adolescent and young adult life pushing her away. Nothing good had ever really lasted for Dwight, if he’d been lucky enough to get it in the first place. He didn’t know how to make it stay, other than just asking. And that had never been enough.

 _Well, I’m going to enjoy it while I can,_ he decided, curling up against Jake and slowing his own breathing as he started to drift off, _It’s the only plus side to getting my head bashed in._

There was a familiar feeling in his legs then, but he was so close to being asleep that he would have tried to ignore it and just go to sleep if he hadn’t been looking across the campfire and seen Laurie sit up as her arm started to vanish.

 _Damn it,_ thought Dwight, groggy and unhappy, _Every time. What did I do to the Entity to make it hate me so much? Me personally? Why—It’s every damn time. Well, I’m not getting up for this. It’s comfortable and warm. I’m staying here until I disappear._

He made good on that promise, closing his eyes and trying to ignore being pulled into a trial until it had happened.

It happened, though, and he was suddenly jolted awake like an electric current had run through his body, to find he was laying on the ground at the newest of the places in this realm—the Japanese house and garden.

 _Okay,_ thought Dwight, adjusting his glasses and sitting up, minorly regretting he hadn’t woken up enough to see who else besides Laurie gotten drawn for the trial, _This place isn’t so bad. Lots of good places to hide here. Now lets see if I can stand up today._

Shakily, Dwight pushed himself up to knees and crouched unsteadily, swaying a little as he tried to stand. _Okay, nope—this is a bad idea,_ he thought, stopping as he felt a wave of dizziness and pain overtake his head, closing his eyes. Slowly, he lowered himself back to his hands and knees and crawled over towards a nearby thin bamboo wall to try and help anchor him. _Damn this is embarrassing I’m so glad we’re out of shrouds and no one’s here to see me doing this._

When he reached the wall, Dwight gripped it with one hand and tried to pull himself up again. The same sick, dizzy feeling ran through him as he made it about halfway up, but he clung to the wall with both hands and shut his eyes until the sensation passed, breathing hard. _Okay. Okay, good. Now find something to work on, or hide,_ he thought, getting his bearings a little. He was close to the little ruined house itself—off to the left, in a garden area. He could see the pole and the flickering lights of a generator about ten feet off, past a wall.

 _I can do this,_ he lied to himself. He tried anyway, pulling himself along the wall cautiously, feeling sick, slowly going inch by inch closer to the generator beyond the wall.

 _You should hide, Dwight,_ he told himself, awkwardly rounding the corner and half collapsing on the generator, leaning against it as he caught his breath, _You’re gonna get caught and hooked and then someone will have to come rescue you._

 _Yeah, I know,_ he answered himself angrily, taking slow, deep breaths and moving to begin work on the generator, _But I’m sick of this. I’m sick of not being able to help, and getting people killed, and being a detriment. I’m not gonna keep doing it. I’m going to do this generator, and if I hear something coming, I’ll hide. If I don’t hear it coming in time, I’ll figure something out._

_Great plan._

_Fuck off,_ he told himself, the generator hitting a familiar rhythm beneath his hands as he connected wires and wrapped them in place.

There was the sound of brush moving as something nearby came quietly through the bamboo, and Dwight froze, suddenly replaying everything he’d seen since the trial had begun, looking for any sign of Jigsaw boxes. _God, please, not the fucking Pig again. It’s been four times already in the last four days—I’m getting her daily, please._

He let go of the generator and edged to the low sill near him, ready to flop over it and try and hide when whatever was coming rounded the corner. He was halfway up the sill when he recognized Laurie’s shirt as she slipped into view, and stopped.

“Oh, hey,” he whispered, awkwardly falling back off the sill, landing on his knees beside the gen.

She waved a quick greeting and joined him at the generator like it was business as usual. It made him feel a little better that she didn’t give him any shit about being reckless. Laurie had always been solitary, intentionally a little separate from the group, but recently he felt like he’d been getting to know her a little better. She was still very private about most of her life before this, but she really liked reading, and he’d finally gotten her to talk about that, and tennis, after a lot of trial and error with trying to guess what she actually enjoyed talking about.

They worked in tandem for a few seconds, generator picking up speed wildly with two of them on it, when a heartbeat started to pound at the edge of their awareness. Both of them paused and traded a glance. Laurie indicated a nearby locker with her head and kept working. Dwight nodded, resigned, and with some difficulty used the wall to pull himself up and over towards it. As he reached it, the heartbeat grew in volume, and Laurie let go of the generator herself, taking off past him and disappearing behind a wall. Dwight opened the door to the locker and slid in, closing it behind him as quietly as possible.

As the killer rounded the edge of the wall and approached the generator out of Dwight’s line of sight, Dwight caught the red stain as it got very, very close. _No singing, no electricity. That’s a plus._

It stopped in front of the generator for a second, and then turned and came towards where Dwight was in the locker, and he felt his heart pounding in his chest so loud for a second he was sure the killer had to be able to hear it too. The massive thing was just a dark shape, blocking the moonlight when it stepped into his field of view, inches from the door, and he couldn’t tell which one it was. Just smell the blood on it. He saw its frame shift, like it was reaching for the handle.

_Shit. Shit._

There was a quiet knock on the door to the locker.

“It’s me,” came a voice he didn’t recognize, “You can come out.”

 _Who? Oh, wait,_ that was right. He’d been unconscious. He wouldn’t recognize that voice. It was only vaguely familiar to him. _From the basement._

The killer in front of the locker stepped back to give him room to open the door, and Dwight recognized the Wraith for certain then, through the slits as he came into view, glowing eyes flickering in the moonlight as he watched the locker.

 _Oh, thank god,_ thought Dwight, opening the door to the locker.

The Wraith nodded at him in greeting as he stepped most of the way out, using the frame of the locker to hold himself up.

“Hello,” said the Wraith, a little stiffly, noticing Dwight stop at the edge of the locker and taking a step back in response to give him more room between them. “You know who I am, right? I spoke with a few of you—you are a group? And you are the leader?”

“Yeah,” said Dwight, trying to figure out exactly the right way to respond to this. _This is so weird,_ he thought, feeling both a little terrified and genuinely relieved standing in front of the Wraith, rather than somewhere in between. “Nice to meet you. Uh. Formally, I guess.” He shifted his weight and offered a hand. The Wraith tilted his head and then stepped forward and reached out, taking the hand and shaking it.

“Sorry,” said the Wraith, letting go of his hand, “I didn’t mean to worry you. I forgot you all would hide. I usually disappear during trials, and I forget that if I walk around normally, I sound like the other reapers.”

 _This is so weird,_ thought Dwight again, having a fairly mundane conversation with the Wraith. It almost reminded him of being stuck in the basement with him, with a hook through the back of his shirt. _Well, I guess I’ve sort of done this before._ “You’re good,” answered Dwight, again hit by how completely strange it was to be having what was almost a totally normal exchange with someone who regularly killed him. “How did you know where I was?” _Why did I ask that?_

“Oh,” answered the Wraith, looking surprised, and than a little uncomfortable, “I…Didn’t. I remembered something, so I happened to look in there. Sort of a mistake. I actually saw the other one—the blonde girl. I came here following her.”

“Oh, right,” said Dwight, turning to look in the direction she’d gone. “Laurie!” he called, “It’s the Wraith—you can come back!” He wasn’t sure if she was still close enough to hear that, but probably. They’d all developed pretty good hearing in this place, out necessity and the will to live.

“You can,” the Wraith started to say, and then stopped, looking a little unsure.

Dwight noticed and turned, giving him a questioning look.

“It’s Philip,” said the Wraith, almost apologetically, “My name, I mean, is Philip. But you can call me Wraith if you would prefer to.”

 _Shit. Very smooth. Great asshole move, Dwight._ “Sorry,” said Dwight, instinctively going for a second handshake, as that was part of his pre-programed ‘introduction’ mode from work, realizing a second after he’d gone for the motion that was probably going to look really stupid. It was too late, though, because he’d already committed to the motion, so he kept the hand up, feeling ridiculous. “Philip. I’m Dwight, Fairfield. We’ve met a lot of times before, but I was out with head trauma when introductions happened.”

Philip took the hand again, looking maybe a little relieved at that for some reason. “You are still injured?” he asked.

“Unfortunately,” answered Dwight as Laurie slipped back around the wall she’d disappeared from, a little cautious still.

Seeing her, Philip made a gesture in greeting, stepping back another pace to give her a little more room to join them back there without having to be super close to him. Laurie waved back, a little awkwardly, and came to stand by Dwight.

“Hi,” said Laurie quietly, “It’s nice to have you back.”

Philip gave a nod to acknowledge the greeting. “Laurie?” he asked, making sure.

She nodded. “Philip,” she answered, a statement, not a question.

“Do you know who else is here?” Dwight asked Laurie.

“Yeah,” she replied, “It’s Nea and Ace.”

Somewhere across the garden, a generator flickered to life. All three of them turned at the sound.

“Guess we know where they are. Or one of them,” Dwight added. “Can you go get them?” he asked, turning to Laurie, “We can meet up at the house.”

She nodded and slipped past Philip, pausing for a second as she passed like she was thinking of saying something, but she didn’t, and then she was gone.

 _I didn’t think this through,_ thought Dwight, looking over at the house, which was about thirty feet away. _I should have had her help me first._ He sighed internally.

The Wraith started for the house, and then paused and looked back when he realized Dwight wasn’t behind him. He was still a few feet back, working towards the house on shaky legs by following the bamboo screens and clinging to them to support himself.

“What happened?” asked the Wraith stopping and waiting for him. Watching quietly, glowing white eyes following Dwight as he edged along the wall and stopped at the end, breathing hard as he gauged the distance between himself and the house. “I have never seen one of you injured so badly before a trial begins, and I have seen very many of you, many times.”

It was hard for Dwight to tell from his tone why he was asking, but he thought it was probably genuine curiosity. “I, uh,” Dwight answered between breaths, feeling a little shaky and nauseous, “I got hurt outside of the trials. By one of the killers—the Cannibal.”

The Wraith tilted his head, looking surprised and a little confused. “We aren’t supposed to attack you outside of trials. Did the Entity send him?”

“No. It wasn’t like that. We know you all don’t—or, at least we sort of assumed it was like that. He didn’t come find us,” answered Dwight, straightening up a little as breathing got easier. “I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. Claudette and I went into his area.”

“His—his home are? Why—how?” asked the Wraith, looking a bit dumbfounded.

“You, actually,” answered Dwight.

The Wraith reacted with surprise, stance straightening and drawing back a little. “—I was…I don’t remember… Did I chase you there?” he asked, trying to piece it together.

“No, no,” said Dwight, smiling a little at the expression on what he could see of the Wraith’s face through the mask. “Nothing like that. We were trying to take you to camp with us, because you were hurt.”

“I was hurt?” asked the Wraith, looking even more surprised. “I didn’t…know that could happen…” he finished slowly, maybe even a little unnerved.

“Yeah, us either,” answered Dwight, carefully taking one step out past the wall, arms up to try to balance himself. The Wraith turned his head to watch. “But the Entity stabbed you on accident. Kind of a long story.”

“The Cannibal did that to you?” questioned the Wraith, circling back to what Dwight had said earlier as he took a step after him, looking at the place on the side of Dwight’s head where there was still padding held in place by a bandage.

“Yeah,” answered Dwight, trying to focus on where he was putting his foot next, “With a sledge hammer.”

The Wraith blanched sympathetically at the thought. “It must have been very bad,” he said, studying Dwight from his comfortable distance. “It still hurts?” he asked, taking another step himself, staying almost abreast, but a few feet to the left.

“It isn’t so bad, pain-wise,” lied Dwight, “It just slows me down. Would have been a lot worse if it wasn’t for you, though,” he added, glancing at the Wraith. The tall man looked surprised. “You killed the Cannibal,” explained Dwight.

The Wraith stopped walking at stared at Dwight, then at nothing for a second. “I.” He blinked, face concentrated. “He’s not dead,” said the Wraith quietly after a second, sounding almost nervous. “I’ve seen him.”

“What?” asked Dwight, breaking concentration and pinwheeling his arms to try and catch himself and keep from falling. The Wraith made a motion like it was going to lunge towards him to catch him, but stopped halfway, watching as Dwight fought to steady himself and succeeded, then withdrew slowly, back to a few feet of safety between them, as if there was some unspoken rule keeping him from getting any closer.

Dwight barely noticed that though, focused on trying to keep his feet and completely overwhelmed suddenly, breaths coming in rough and uneven and feeling sick. _Stop panicking! What are you doing?_ he snapped internally at himself. He thought he heard the Wraith say something, but it didn’t really register. _You aren’t in a trial with the Cannibal! That doesn’t change anything right now!_

It didn’t, and he knew that, but his mind didn’t. The fear was overwhelming. No one had seen the Cannibal since the Wraith had done what they assumed had killed him a few weeks back, and they’d all believed—he’d believed…or hoped. Thought, maybe. It had seemed like such a sure thing that it was really dead. _It probably won’t remember. And even if it does, it doesn’t have any reason to want to kill you, specifically,_ he thought, trying to calm himself. It wasn’t working though, and that was beyond frustrating. There was no reason at all to be freaking out here—now—over this, and he fucking knew it. But he couldn’t stop. His arms started to shake, and he kept one out to the side to maintain his balance and held the other up in front of his face, watching it, trying to force it to obey him and stop. It didn’t. His legs started to trembled and his heart sped up faster and faster until he was afraid suddenly something was wrong with it. _Calm down, fuck it! Stop!_

The mental image of the huge thing with skin as a mask standing above him. Paralyzed. Head hurting, bleeding. Holding up the huge chainsaw, ready to kill him.

Dwight’s legs gave out and he fell to his knees, barely even aware it had happened. Head pounding, heart thudding. Everything was overwhelming and impossible to focus on or see through and he couldn’t stop shaking. _Stop it, stop it, stop it,_ he shouted at himself internally, but his heartbeat was drowning out even his ability to think and it was all he could hear.

Something touched him and he screamed and recoiled on instinct, falling sideways to the ground. His senses were still going crazy and his heart overwhelming his ability to hear right, but he saw the Wraith crouched over him, hands held towards him, palm out, trying to calm him down.

“It’s just me—you’re safe,” he heard the Wraith say through the thudding in his ears. “Are you hurt?”

Dwight tried to say _No,_ but the sound died in his throat and he couldn’t get it out. He shook his head instead, still trembling. _I’m not hurt. I’m okay, I’m okay. Stop it, stop freaking out. Calm down. Calm down, calm down, calm down._ It wasn’t working. His chest was heaving and he could feel his whole body shaking in response to the fear and adrenaline flooding his system.

“Okay,” said the Wraith in a calming voice, still hovering close and looking him over. “Listen. You don’t look so good. I don’t think you should try to walk right now. Will you let me help you?” he asked, looking at Dwight and sounding uncertain.

 _That’s okay,_ thought Dwight through the panic in his chest, _He’s friendly, and that’s…That’s a good idea. You’ll fall over alone. Say yes._ He nodded again, expecting it to put an arm under one of his and help him up. Instead, very slowly, it moved closer and took a knee, then reached out and slipped an arm behind his back and another under his knees and stood, picking him up.

It was an indescribable experience, the aura of terror that followed these things overwhelming his senses this close to the Wraith, and his own heart doing its best to keep time with the pounding in his ears as it held him and walked towards one of the entrances to the house. He probably should have objected, or thanked the Wraith, or said something, but he was so surprised he couldn’t figure out what he should have done, and he was having a hard time doing anything more difficult than breathing suddenly.

Moving carefully, the Wraith carried him up to the house and into one of the rooms, setting him down gently on a small cushion on the floor.

“You are okay?” the Wraith asked him again, moving back a little to give him space as soon as it had let go of him.

“Yeah, yeah I think so,” answered Dwight, fear calming down enough to let him talk more clearly now. “Thanks,” he added, feeling embarrassed.

“Pretty bad?” asked the Wraith, indicating the bandage on Dwight’s head.

“Yeah,” said Dwight, hand lifting to the wound himself like something might have changed. “Hard to keep my balance sometimes,” he offered, hoping the Wraith would buy that as a complete explanation. It seemed to, nodding and sitting down cross-legged itself. _Philip, not Wraith,_ Dwight told himself, taking a deep breath. _You gotta stop with that._

“The Cannibal’s really back?” Dwight asked after a second, trying to focus on where he was to help himself calm down.

“He is,” answered Philip, “I’m sorry.”

“That’s…it shouldn’t be surprising,” answered Dwight after a second. “We thought that might happen. But it’s been a few weeks, so… Anyway, it’s not your fault. Uhm.”

There was an awkward silence as neither of them knew what to say.

“I know Claudette and Tapp and Kate and Adam talked to you some,” Dwight continued after a second. “I guess—well, I definitely have some stuff to tell you, and to ask, but, do you have any…uh…questions? For me—or, us?”

Philip thought for a second. Outside, they heard the faint chatter of voices Dwight recognized as Ace, Laurie, and Nea getting closer.

“How did this start?” Philip asked after a second, glancing over at Dwight. “I have been told I have forgotten you many times. But you all still seem to trust me. Why? How did this begin?”

“Oh,” answered Dwight, glad it was something easier to answer than he’d been expecting. “You let me and Claudette go once, right in the middle of chasing us down. We never found out why. We were both basically dead to rights, but, you kind of froze up and let us go.”

Philip was quiet for a second, looking thoughtful. “And for that,” he asked after a second, looking back over, “You kept trying to reach me?”

“Well, yeah,” answered Dwight after a second. “I guess you don’t really know what it’s like to be a survivor here. But the short version is, it sucks. You die all the time, you’re always scared, or in pain, most of the time both. You might have killed us a couple thousand times and let us go once, but. That’s still a big deal. If nothing good ever happens, one good thing’s always gonna be a big deal.”

“Hope,” concluded Philip quietly, watching him.

Dwight nodded.

“I suppose it is simple,” said Philip after a moment, as the other three reached the house.

He still wasn’t feeling great, but whatever had happened to him back outside mostly seemed to be passing, and the drop in levels of bad from ‘abysmal’ to ‘not great’ was enough of a relief to make Dwight feel pretty good. As his friends reached the house, Laurie and Ace walked in the doorway together, and Nea vaulted a low windowsill, probably just for fun.

“Hey,” said Nea, indicating Philip with her head as she landed. “Nice to see you again. In a non-killer capacity.”

Ace nodded agreement, matching Dwight and Philip’s cross-legged position on the floor. “And to not be in a normal trial. I’m Ace,” he added.

“Nea,” said Nea, sliding to a sitting position beside Ace.

“Philip,” said Philip, looking to Dwight very uncomfortable and maybe a little nervous. “I am sorry,” he added after a second, “For…killing you all.”

 _Yeah, that would be a difficult sentence to get out,_ thought Dwight, watching his incredible discomfort. For the first time in weeks, someone was having a worse trial experience than him. They’d all been sacrificed a lot of times by the Wraith, and everyone but Laurie had also been mori’d.

“Eh,” said Ace, shrugging it off. “I’m pretty sure we can all move past that.”

The others seemed to agree.

“I, uh, do have a question,” Philip said after a second, glancing back over at Dwight. “What…Uh. Sorry,” he added, looking awkward, “I am trying to think of how to ask this.”

“You good,” said Nea, leaning her arms on a knee, “Take your time.”

“I know from what I left myself, and from your other…friends, that I have helped you before. And some of what is going on. But I don’t know how much I have forgotten. Or what I am helping you do, and how? I know you said to escape, if possible, but is there a plan?” he asked.

“Hang on. You don’t have any idea what’s going on and you didn’t ask anyone last time?” asked Ace, looking surprised and suddenly like he was having a really, really hard time not laughing.

“I asked some things,” Philip defended himself, looking extremely embarrassed, “But a lot was happening, and it seemed to be going well, so I…yes, I didn’t ask.”

“Oh,” said Nea, looking pretty happy about this, “Okay, cool. You’re way less scary than I thought, by the way. So, short version. Stop me if I say a name you don’t get. You let Claudette and Dwight go, then forgot us, you tried to talk to Dwight and saved him from the Entity, then forgot us again, you became friends with Meg, Claudette, Dwight, Kate, and Quentin—”

“—Sort of,” said Dwight at the same time Philip said “I don’t know Quentin.”

“Sort of,” corrected Nea, “And Quentin’s the one who never sleeps and always looks like a college student during finals week.”

Philip nodded, knowing exactly who that was.

“Then you forgot us again, we still didn’t know you that well at all, and then you got hurt during a trial and Dwight an Claudette got stuck out here with you—yeah, they usually seem to be the two who cause you trouble,” she added, noticing Philip about to say something, “Anyway, they got you most of the way back to camp because they wanted to give you first aid. Cannibal attacked, you killed him, we took you back, everyone made friends, you agreed to help us and talked to Laurie and Meg and Claudette and Quentin for like four hours, and then you left and that brings you up to current you.”

“Ah,” said Philip after a second, not looking like that had cleared up anything.

“Did that actually help?” asked Laurie, also catching the look on his face.

“I don’t know,” answered Philip. “Wait, then. We didn’t know each other well?”

“Yeah,” replied Nea, “Just for like a day. And off and on a few times for like ten minutes.”

“Oh.” Philip looked surprised, and thoughtful. “I had thought…” After a second, he looked maybe a little relieved too.

“Before, every time you even sort of gave us a chance, the Entity would reset you and make you forget us,” explained Dwight. “It’s why we’re trying to be so careful this time.”

“Speaking of,” said Nea, “Two or three of us have to die, right? To make it look believable.”

“Yeah,” answered Dwight, wishing he hadn’t had to think about this yet. “I can go. It’s only fair, since I keep getting people killed in every other trial I’m in.”

“No way, man,” replied Nea. “You die all the time already. And you keep getting trials back-to-back. I’ll do it.”

“And I’ll go too,” said Ace. “You and Laurie have been dying…organically a lot more than me or her. Could use a break.”

Nea gave him a fist bump.

“I haven’t had it that bad,” said Laurie.

“Yeah, you have,” replied Ace, tilting his sunglasses down to look at her over the tops of them.

“But,” Dwight tried, “I should—"

“C’mon fam, we got this,” Nea said, cutting him off. “Besides. I can brag about it later to Feng. Chicks dig heroism.”

“And I’m old,” added Ace nonchalantly, like that was a good enough excuse to be dying. “Not old-old,” he added, “Silver fox old, obviously, but you’re a bunch of kids.”

“Will that work?” Nea asked Philip, cutting off something Laurie had been about to say.

“It will look odd if it is always two, eventually. Sometimes three, or four, or one, or none would be a better choice. But that should be fine for a while,” replied Philip, not sounding very happy about the whole thing.

“Done deal,” said Ace, nodding at Nea.

“We really should draw straws, to make it fair,” said Dwight, trying one last time to dissuade them, even though it would sincerely be nice _not_ to be sacrificed or killed in a trial. It had been a few for him.

“Cool, in the future we will,” replied Nea. “I think Ace and I are good with this, though. I owe you one,” she added, winking at him.

“You had a second question in there,” said Ace, changing the subject and turning back to Philip. “About our plans?”

Philip gave a nod.

“Right, so there’s obviously a lot we don’t know,” said Dwight, “But I’ll try to go over this as concisely as I can, since I know our time in here isn’t unlimited. What we want, is a way to go home. For all of us—you too. You want that, right?”

Across from him, Philip looked a little surprised for a second, and he glanced away, considering. “I would like to go home,” he said quietly after a moment, looking back at Dwight, “Yes.”

“Okay,” continued Dwight, “Good. Well, to do that, we need to understand a lot more about how the Entity works. There’s some stuff we know—there are weird rules about how to get from place to place, and who can and can’t go where. We know that it takes a wide variety of killers, and we’re pretty sure it grabs the rest of us just because we happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We can die here, for real, but it’s hard—”

“—Has one of you died?” asked Philip, a little taken aback.

“No,” answered Dwight, “That’s I guess something we don’t have 100% proof of, but Laurie’s the one who figured most of that out, and she’s got some pretty solid logic to back it up. So, I’d still group it with the things we’re at least mostly sure of.”

Philip turned to look at Laurie.

“It doesn’t make sense for the Entity to do some of the things it’s done unless we can die—you all too,” said Laurie, indicating Philip. “I don’t know if it’s the same for killers, but some of the rules here we just sort of…knew. We could tell we had to fix the generators, and that offering sacrifices at our campfire would change things. Some of it is trial and error, but a lot of it was kind of weirdly innate.”

“It is not exactly the same for us,” answered Philip. “At least, I was given more instruction. There are some things which we just come to know, though. Ways we can shape our abilities, what it would like us to do in most situations. How many offerings work. But I know what you mean.”

“We’re pretty sure that if you give up—like really give up—on everything. Will to live. Then, you die for real,” said Laurie. “Killer or survivor. It was something I could…tell. And then, I’m pretty sure the Entity tried to stop one of you from doing that. Well—did stop. Not tried.”

“One of us gave up?” asked Philip, genuinely surprised and also very interested. “Which one?”

“The Shape,” answered Laurie. Philip looked even more surprised. “But only almost. He’s still here.”

“I would never have expected that,” said Philip slowly, thinking. “It makes sense, though. The Entity sacrifices to gain energy. If someone was no longer going to provide any, they would become useless. Although, I would have thought it had ways of making a reaper keep going…”

“The sacrifices are food for it?” Nea asked, leaning forward, “I mean, I kinda figured it was something like that. I’m sure we all did. But so…like if we all just got super good at never being caught, would it starve to death?”

“The odds of that happening are very small,” answered Philip, “And I am sure it would take action before it came to that. I’m sorry, though. I have not asked it many questions about its process yet. I am trying to be careful. So that is all I am sure of, right now. I know it does not want you all to give up, though. That’s why there is a way out.”

“Like a farm,” commented Ace, making a face. “You kill a cow, you get a few meals. You keep it for the milk…”

“That’s a super, super gross analogy,” said Nea, looking truthfully grossed out, “But yeah—I see your point. Fits with the meat hooks too. We’re the herd.”

“I can find out more,” offered Philip, “But it may take awhile.”

“That would be good. But back to the earlier question,” said Dwight, trying to get a little order back in hand, “The most solid plan we have right now is figuring out more about how the Entity grabs killers and survivors. That’s the only time we know for sure there’s a path open between here and home, so, if we could figure out how to be at the right place ourselves, we could maybe make it back out.”

“Even if we could figure out a way to predict when it was going to take someone,” Philip said slowly, thinking, “Neither of us can go wherever we want.”

“I actually might have a solution to that,” said Dwight, feeling pretty proud of himself.

“Yeah,” added Nea, grinning. “It took them like twelve hours yesterday, but it’s pretty cool.”

“What?” asked Philip, looking from one to the other, “What did you find?”

“Well, I can’t really show you until we finish the rest of the gens,” replied Dwight, taking a key out of his pocket, “But this.”

“The black lock,” responded Philip, still looking a little confused by this line of reasoning.

“You call the hatch the black lock?” asked Nea.

“The Entity does,” said Philip, glancing over at her.

“Kind of a weird thing for it to make. I guess it was part of the offering us a way out so we don’t give up deal?” said Ace.

“It didn’t make it,” replied Philip.

The other four stopped what they were doing.

“The…” started Dwight, unable to finish because his mind was booking it like he was late for a first day of class, scrambling to catch up to what he’d just been told.

“The Entity didn’t make the hatch?” asked Laurie, looking at Philip. “But. How’s that even possible—it’s part of every trial. It’s everywhere. Who did?”

“It was a survivor,” replied Philip quietly, “I don’t know his—their name. But they are dead now. The Entity hated them, and it does not usually seem to have strong feelings on anything. At least that I can tell. But it also hates the black lock.”

“You’re telling us a survivor put together the hatch and tacked it onto the building blocks of every single trial?” asked Ace, astounded. “I didn’t know we could _do_ that.”

“You are not supposed to be able to,” replied Philip, shifting, “There was one survivor who drove the Entity crazy at one point. A long time ago. He did a lot of things he wasn’t supposed to be able to. I don’t know much about h—them, only that he was very good at understanding the rules and finding loopholes.”

“Damn. Good on that dude,” said Nea, “I’m going to pour one out for him when we get back. Stick it to the Entity. It’s too bad he’s gone,” she added, her last thought more sincere and serious than the rest of her tone had been.

“This is good—this is probably fantastic for us,” said Dwight, mind still racing, “If one of us did this kind of thing before, maybe we can figure out a way to do it again. We just need to spend more time studying—experimenting. But it makes the hatch plan even better.”

“You think you can use it to get to wherever the Entity opens a rift?” asked Philip, keeping up pretty easily, which impressed Dwight, because it had taken him and the others quite a while to put together a working plan.

“Yeah,” admitted Dwight, “We do. But also, we talked it over, and it’s going to be difficult for you to only ever be able to talk to a handful of us during trials,”

“Plus, it sucks for you,” added Nea.

“Right,” continued Dwight, “So this is for you,” he added, handing the key out to Philip.

Philip stared at it, but didn’t take it. “I can’t use that,” he said after a moment, sounding a little sad. “Reapers can’t use the hatch. It was designed to keep us out.”

“Nope,” said Dwight, smiling.

“’Nope’?” repeated Philip, looking confused.

“You’ve used one before—with Claudette and me,” he replied.

Philip stared at him, then the key, then started to say something, then stopped.

“You okay buddy?” asked Nea.

“I don’t understand,” said Philip, looking at the key like it might bite him, “That isn’t possible. We cannot use the hatch.”

“ _You_ can,” replied Dwight. “I’ve seen you do it.”

“We can show him,” said Laurie, standing up. “Dwight and I had a generator almost done.”

“Yeah, and we were close to finished on our second,” added Ace. “Won’t take long.”

“You stay here,” said Laurie to Dwight.

“I can help,” he replied, shaking his head.

“Then do that one,” said Laurie, pointing to the generator in the room with them that Dwight had completely forgotten about.

“Oh, right,” he replied, feeling sheepish.

Laurie shook her head and smiled at him for just a second, then slipped out the side entry as Nea and Ace headed back out the way they’d come.

A little awkwardly, Dwight stood up, testing his legs. Philip stood up too, watching him carefully. He made it though, and then carefully and painfully slowly walked the eight feet over to the generator and knelt beside it, Philip silent behind him, watching.

He started to work, relieved at something he could do much more easily than walking on his own. After a few seconds they heard the generator Laurie and Dwight had been working on light off to their left, and Philip turned to look in that direction, staring for a few seconds at nothing after the noise had faded.

“It’s weird, huh?” asked Dwight, studying the other man’s face.

Philip turned his head to look at him, a little caught off guard.

“All of this,” continued Dwight, glancing back at the generator for a second to check the placing of a screw, and then looking back at Philip. “The whole trial thing, but not this time. Is it weird? Just letting us do generators?”

“It is,” answered Philip after a few seconds, still standing the five-ish feet away he’d been working hard to maintain with all of them. His glowing white eyes shifted to follow Dwight’s hands as he worked on the generator.

“Is it hard not to attack us?” asked Dwight, curious but instantly regretting asking that once he’d said it. “You don’t have to answer that,” he hurried to add.

“No,” said Philip, answering anyway. Looking a little distant. “It just feels wrong. I don’t want to hurt you, so there is no place for me here.”

“Yeah,” said Dwight quietly after a second, thinking about that.

The tall man shifted idly, looking out towards the garden, waiting for the third generator to light. He looked very solitary, but not in any of the ways that could be good. Isolated. _Not one of us, not one of them,_ thought Dwight, watching, _That would be lonely._

“Hey,” said Dwight after a second, “You want to help fix the generator?”

Philip looked surprised, and started to take a step towards him, like he might, then hesitated. “I probably should not,” he said nervously, “It might notice.”

“It can tell who worked on generators?” asked Dwight.

He shrugged, a little hopelessly. “It might.” Off in the garden, the third generator lit. “But thank you anyway,” added Philip quietly after a second, looking towards the sound of the lit gen.

“Yeah,” answered Dwight, trying to think of something better to say. “Hey, Philip?” he asked after a second. Philip looked back from the yard to him at the sound of his name. “I know that I don’t know what any of this is like for you, but thank you. For doing this. Not just this time, but before too. I’m pretty sure you died protecting me once. Or—got in a lot of trouble. I didn’t thank you for that. And then you saved me again, from the Cannibal. I never got the chance to thank you for that either, but I’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for you.”

Philip didn’t say anything, but he watched Dwight, hard to read expression on his face behind the mud mask, but Dwight thought maybe a little sad.

“You should be more careful,” Philip said finally after a few seconds, voice a little stiff and quiet as he looked down at Dwight. “You trust me too easily after everything I’ve done.”

“Yeah, well, it’s worked out really well for us, so you don’t really get to criticize that call,” replied Dwight, smiling over at him.

Philip didn’t answer, and instead moved and sat down a few feet away. After a couple of seconds he looked over at Dwight and said, “I don’t remember what you do, or deserve thanks for being kind once out of thousands, but I’m sure I would have said you were welcome.”

“You know this isn’t all your fault, right?” asked Dwight, pausing in his work on the generator. Philip wasn’t looking at him. “I didn’t hear your story first-hand, but I know about it. You were lied to. You didn’t know.”

“I should have,” replied Philip, glancing in his direction for just a second.

Dwight shrugged. “Maybe. But maybe not. The Entity’s a pretty powerful thing. Anyway, we don’t blame you. And we’re the people who got hurt, so there’s really no point in you blaming yourself.”

He lit the generator then, and let out a breath of relief. About twenty seconds later, another one flickered on in the yard. _That’s five._

Philip stood up and walked over, offering Dwight a hand. Dwight took it, and Philip pulled him gently to his feet, not letting go of the hand until Dwight had gotten his balance.

“This has really gotten to be a problem,” Dwight said, trying to joke about his inability to really walk around on his own in the hopes it would make himself feel better about it.

“Is it getting better?” asked Philip, sounding concerned.

“Yeah, yeah—just slowly,” answered Dwight. “My legs are fine, I just get dizzy.”

Philip helped him walk over to the edge of the house as they waited for one of the others to find the hatch, coming to a stop at the porch railing.

“Thank you,” said Philip, letting go of him as Dwight started to use the railing to help himself keep balance. “Two of you are going to have to die in a few minutes, an you are still trying to make _me_ feel better.”

“Well, you’re one of us now,” replied Dwight.

Philip tilted his head and then looked away, but Dwight thought he almost saw him smile for a second.

“Found it!” came Ace’s voice from off to the right.

“I could carry you,” offered Philip, looking over at Dwight, “But you would probably not like that in front of all of your friends.”

“Yeah, a little embarrassing,” said Dwight, flushing. “I think I can make it okay with someone to lean on.”

Philip offered him an arm, and Dwight took it, using him as a brace to lean against whenever he felt dizzy as they walked. _This is so weird,_ he thought again, looking up at the huge man beside him. He had been killed by the Wraith so many times. Only a few days ago he’d been beaten to death by him. Too injured to try to run away. And here he was, helping him walk and trying to keep enough distance the rest of the time that no one would feel threatened by his presence. It had to be just as weird for Philip—to be killing people, over and over, and then one day start trying to be friends with them instead? Especially if you’d just realized you shouldn’t have been killing them that whole time. Not that this was a regular situation—it was probably the only time, ever, that this had happened to anyone. Uncharted territory.

Dwight wasn’t scared of him. He hadn’t been scared of the Wraith since the time he’d saved him in the basement. But it was still odd. The part of his brain that handled hardwired responses to trials wouldn’t stop freaking out about being this close to something it knew was dangerous, this close to a terror aura. It was conditioned to be afraid.

And at the same time, he was the man who’d risked his life to save Dwight’s. Strong, an ally. And on some third level he was just some guy. An acquaintance Dwight didn’t know that well yet helping him get from point a to point b because he needed the help. _I wonder how many things I am?_ thought Dwight, glancing up at Philip. _Murder victim, ally, stranger?_

He swayed for a second, temporarily losing his balance, and Philip caught him and helped him steady himself. As he tried to get grounded, Dwight’s hand closed around the piece of metal Philip had always worn wrapped around his left wrist, and it caught Dwight’s eye for a second.

“Nice bracelet,” he said, mind automatically trying to fill what had been a pretty long silence and instantly regretting the impulse. _‘Nice bracelet?’ Come on Dwight, you’re killing me. Please stop this. Not today._ “I, uh, like the sun,” he added, thinking that might make it sound less awkward. It didn’t.

“The what?” asked Philip, looking down at his arm.

Dwight pointed to a tiny marking etched onto the inside of the metal, about three coils down. A little symbol like a rising sun.

Philip stared at it.

“You…didn’t know that was there?” asked Dwight, watching him.

“No,” answered Philip, still looking at the little etching. After a second, Philip shook his head to clear it and kept walking, but every so often he sent the bracelet a glance somewhere between confusion and suspicion until they got close enough to see Ace, Nea, and Laurie a few yards off.

“Why have you not gotten a cane?” asked Philip as they neared the three up ahead around the hatch.

“I, uh…Don’t know,” he answered honestly, “I didn’t think of that.”

“It would probably help,” said Philip.

_Yeah, it probably would. There’s like twelve of us. Why haven’t we tried that at all? I mean, I doubt I could take that into trials with me, but around the camp it would be nice. Plus, I could probably break off a branch or something. Although that would be noisy. Would I be able to bring a walking stick with me? Is that a thing? I would have said definitely no, but now that I’m thinking about it I have no clue…Man, sometimes we’re figuring out ways to misuse the hatch and parkour past killers, but sometimes we’re dumb as fuck._

“Okay, so,” continued Dwight, taking the key out again as he and Philip came to a stop, “If you come with us, will the Entity know? Does it check with you immediately after trials?”

“No, unless something has happened, or I have done especially well or poorly,” replied Philip. “Usually I will just return to the garage until another trial starts.”

“You have awhile?” asked Nea hopefully.

He nodded. “Most times.”

“Good,” replied Dwight, “Then we can show you how to use the hatch.”

“Hang on,” said Ace, putting his hand over Dwight’s on the key. “Hatch only stays open for about thirty seconds with a key. Let’s Nea and me take care of things with the Wraith first.”

“Oh, right,” said Dwight quietly, having genuinely forgotten. “Look, I really don’t mind going,” he lied.

Ace smiled and shook his head. “We got it squared away already. Come on, Nea.”

Nea turned and went with him, and Philip let go of Dwight’s arm and followed them slowly. After they’d gone out of sight, Dwight and Laurie could hear them talking to each other, but couldn’t tell what they were saying.

“I don’t like it,” said Laurie after a second, watching the direction they’d disappeared into, “I know we have to, but I don’t like just letting them die.”

“Yeah, me either,” replied Dwight quietly, watching with her.

“At least it’s not as bad when you’re letting it happen,” said Laurie after a second, expression distant.

 _Oh, right. You’d know,_ Dwight realized, watching her. “Hey, so, that time with the Shape. Pretty soon after I got injured?”

She turned to look at him. “Yeah?”

“What happened?” asked Dwight. “I know you didn’t want to talk about it, and probably still don’t,” he hurried to add, seeing the expression on her face as she started to open her mouth, “It’s just that. We all lived except you. Even me. We only saw him once, when we finished the last generator—he showed up and almost got Ace at the exit. But before that, we didn’t see him once. And that was for whole minutes after you had already died. What happened?”

Laurie shrugged.

“You haven’t seen him since, have you?” asked Dwight, studying her.

“No,” said Laurie, not looking at him this time.

“He’s still burning keys,” said Dwight, turning with her to watch as somewhere out of view Nea went up on a hook, “But not every time anymore. Just sometimes.”

After a minute, Ace went up on a hook nearby, and then they were both gone. Dwight had seen sacrifices before, but usually he was too busy running or working on generators to really watch. He hadn’t paid full attention to a sacrifice in a long time—since some of his first trials. But he watched now, as the spiral claws descended from an inky black circle in the sky and lifted up the shadowy outline of two people, taking them somewhere else. He didn’t know where—back to the campfire? They always went back, but he wasn’t sure that the thing being taken into the sky was really them. Maybe just a part of them. He always felt exhausted and drained after being sacrificed, and there was never any memory after dying and before waking up back at the fire.

It didn’t take too long for Philip to appear again, at the edge of a clump of bamboo, walking quietly. He saw them waiting for him and didn’t meet their gazes as he came to join them. Shoulders slumped, face unreadable.

He paused by the hatch, across from them, and waited, still not really looking at them.

Laurie glanced at Dwight, then reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. Philip flinched and drew back instinctively at the touch, but Laurie tried again and the second time he didn’t pull away.

After a second, Philip looked down at her, and she smiled at him, a little sadly.

“So,” she said, turning to Dwight, “The hatch?”

“Yeah,” replied Dwight, turning the key over in his hands. “So, last time we tried this we had you open the lock, and ended up at your place.”

“You went to the garage?” asked Philip, glancing at him for a second, taken by surprise.

“Yes, so, I’m going to open it this time,” said Dwight. “Big thing is, the hatch is supposed to take you home. Or, you know, whatever home base is here. Where you’re safest. There’s all kinds of tunnels once you go down, but you always end up on the one that takes you home. Now, the door won’t even appear in a trial until you’ve gotten a lot of generators done, sometimes all of them, but the tunnels are always there, we think. We started wondering if there’s a way to get into them outside of trials, because there should be—doors open two ways. We’ve all climbed out of the tunnels to get back to the campfire, so sometimes a hatch exists in our forest. Problem is, we could never find it. To get it to actually show up-show up, you have to get specific things done in trials, and obviously we can’t do the same things at the camp fire. We tried a few things, but since we don’t have that many maps and our first few attempts didn’t work, we just waited for one of us to hatch escape so we could figure out where our hatch is the easy way, even though after we use it, it goes back to being invisible to us. Our best maps can track it when it’s invisible for like ten seconds maybe, but we don’t have many, so marking the approximate location worked out. I’m sorry—is any of this making sense to you? You don’t have to use all the weird shit we do in trials.”

“I think so, yes,” replied Philip, who did look like he was paying close attention.

“Okay, well, after we found ours, we still couldn’t actually get it open,” continued Dwight, “because it’s not really…there, I mean, it is, but it’s not, at the same time. Like how the exits are always there, but we can’t power them on without the generators. The keys can do a lot of stuff if you tie things to them, though. Prayer beads, little trinkets. None of us had spent a lot of time before this trying to figure out why.”

“But Quentin figured it out,” said Laurie, “A lot of the things we use on the key aren’t really important to any of us, but they are some kind of icon. Or ceremonial things: prayer rope, tokens, gemstones. Quentin’s got a saint medallion he always wears, and using that like one of the regular tokens, a key will light up our hatch long enough for us to get it open. Still destroys the key, though.”

“We got ours open with that, but we haven’t explored much, because the tunnels always just turn us back to the campfire. And also, we don’t have a whole lot of keys,” explained Dwight, “It’s really rare to find one. But if you come back to camp with us, and then open our hatch yourself, it should take you back to your garage. We already know that’s where the hatch will take you if you open it. Our sort of ‘home’ locations are different, so if I open the hatch in a trial, the tunnels should take us to the campfire. Then, if you open the campfire hatch, it should take you to the garage. This way, sometimes you can come back with us after a trial and we can talk as a group. Obviously we don’t want to do it too much, or the Entity might notice, but I think a lot of the time it doesn’t pay that much attention, and if it didn’t even make the hatch, it might not even be able to tell when it’s being used, even if it _was_ looking for someone.”

“It does often not pay attention,” agreed Philip, eyeing the hatch.

“Okay, then, before I do this—does it sound like a terrible idea to you? Will the Entity notice with an 80% probability or something? Anything you know that we don’t that means we should definitely not try this?” asked Dwight.

Considering, Philip tapped a finger against the hilt of his sickle for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “No. It does not monitor us closely. A lot of this is more like a machine than a sport to it—if it runs, it does not need to be checked. It will not send me again for a few hours at least. And you may well be right about the black lock. It used to complain about it—the survivor who made it often used it to be very difficult to find.”

“Okay,” said Dwight, kneeling beside the hatch, “Then let’s do this.”

Philip still looked uncertain. “You are sure I will be able to pass through a black lock, though?”

“You have before,” said Dwight, inserting the key into the keyhole. He turned it, and the little bent thing shattered in his hand as it leeched the fog inside the keyhole into its body. The hatch opened, letting off a familiar sound like wind and light. “Go on, try,” he added, standing back.

Hesitantly, Philip moved over to it, and lifted a foot, like he was going to try to step inside, then he stopped and stepped back, turning to the others again. “Reapers can’t use the black lock,” he said again, almost pleadingly. “It isn’t going to work.”

“Just try,” said Laurie encouragingly. “Here, I’ll go first.”

She walked over to the hatch and hopped in, landing on the earthen floor below easily and looking up at the other two.

“We don’t have that long,” said Dwight, nudging Philip towards the open doorway.

“Alright,” said Philip dubiously. Slowly, he crouched by the hole and slid his hand down into it. The hand sunk past the black mist pouring out easily, and Philip stared at it, then pulled the hand back out and stared at it again. “This should not work,” said Philip, looking up at Dwight.

“I’ll take your word for it, but it does, so get in before the hatch closes,” said Dwight, looking at his watch and counting down seconds.

Philip nodded and slipped inside, landing on the ground beside Laurie. Dwight slid in after them, using the rungs to help himself down because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stick the landing. Above him, the hatch slammed shut.

It became pitch black, and there was the sound of multiple people fumbling, and then Laurie had a flashlight out.

“Okay boys, this way,” she said, taking point.

Philip and Dwight followed along behind her, Philip pausing to run his hands over the strange earthen walls. Laurie had paused anyway, to offer Dwight an arm to help steady him, and they both stopped when they noticed Philip wasn’t moving.

“You okay?” asked Laurie, turning the flashlight towards him.

“Yes,” said Philip lowering his hand, but still staring at the wall in the dim light. “It’s just something I have never seen before. But it feels familiar,” he added after a second, turning towards them again and joining them.

All together now, Laurie lead the group along several dim hallways, supporting Dwight, taking turns on instinct. It was quiet, slow going—the long way back from a trial. Especially with Dwight wounded. After a minute of walking, Laurie glanced behind her at Philip.

“What happened to your mask?” she asked, “The crack in the forehead—it’s new.”

Automatically, Philip raised a hand to his forehead and let his fingers find the crack. “This?” he asked, “Yes. It is new. It was…” he paused, choosing words carefully, “A reprimand,” he finished. “Failing at responsibilities. I can’t really remember what I did, though. Probably because I was not meant to.”

“Is that normal?” Laurie asked, “Getting hurt if you disobey?”

“Yes,” said Philip after a second. “It is. I would not have described it that way, but, yes.”

“For you, or for everyone?” said Laurie, looking over her shoulder at him.

“Everyone,” said Philip automatically. “Though, I’m sure methods differ.”

It was quiet for a second then, nothing but the sound of footsteps in dirt.

“Are you okay?” asked Dwight.

“Yes,” replied Philip. “It’s not so bad. It’s over now.”

“Does it hurt?” asked Laurie.

“Not anymore,” said Philip. “I’m sure it hurts less than being sacrificed.”

 _Shit,_ thought Dwight, running over several pieces of information in his head. “Is that what all your scars are from?” he asked, almost afraid to know the answer. There were so, so many of them. All over his body. Arms, and legs, a massive one on his chest.

Philip’s stride changed like he’d missed a step, and he didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then, finally, he said, “Yes. Most of it.”

Laurie and Dwight glanced at each other.

“I’m sorry,” said Dwight after a second, not sure what else _to_ say.

Philip shrugged. “In ways I suppose it really was deserved.”

Dwight and Laurie traded a quick look again.

“I’m not sure that’s fair,” said Laurie after a second.

“Yeah,” agreed Dwight. Philip didn’t say anything.

They turned a corner, and up ahead they saw what they’d been looking for: a dead end, with another little rung ladder leading up.

Laurie let go of Dwight and glanced behind her for a second at Philip, then turned and climbed up ahead of them, flipping the hatch open when she reached the top.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Philip asked Dwight quietly, looking up at the square of light above them and seeming more worried than Dwight had seen him look before.

“Trust me,” answered Dwight, motioning up, “They’ll be happy to see you.”

Philip nodded silently, reached out, hesitated for a second, and then climbed the rungs.

Above him, as soon as Philip cleared the hatch, Dwight heard Meg’s voice scream, “Philip! You’re back!” and he saw Philip go over backwards like a bowling pin as she probably slammed into him. Dwight winced sympathetically and started climbing the rungs himself. It was right at the high end of what he could physically do right now, and he made it, but winded and breathing like he’d just sprinted a mile when he reached the top.

Jake was waiting at the top, and offered him an arm, which Dwight took, being half lifted the last few feet.

Outside, Philip was sitting on the ground with Meg wrapped around his chest in a death-grip hug, looking equal parts confused, shocked, and uncomfortable. _Yeah. Poor guy,_ thought Dwight, bent over trying to retain as much dignity as he could while gasping for breath, _You have no idea what’s going on._

The others had gathered too, and looking around the group Philip seemed a little relieved to see Kate, Adam, Claudette, and Tapp. Claudette ran over and stopped beside him, breaming. For a second Dwight thought she was going to go in for a hug too, but she just plopped down beside him and said, “Welcome back,” then leaned against his side.

“Hi,” answered Philip, looking a little less out of his element. Then he looked back at the young woman clinging to his chest, clearly hoping this was going to end soon. It didn’t. “Meg?” Philip asked after a second, looking down at the top of her head.

“Yeah!” said Meg, not letting go, but leaning back a little, “I’m so glad you’re here! When Nea and Ace told us you were coming with Dwight and Laurie, Claudette made coffee, so we have some if you want it.”

Claudette looked embarrassed.

“Oh! You probably don’t remember me,” said Meg, still sitting on him but letting go so she could offer him a hand to shake, “Meg Thomas, we go way back.”

Philip took it and shook it awkwardly, but a little less uncomfortable than he’d looked before. “I don’t remember anyone,” he said, chagrined, “But I heard we had met.”

“We can catch you up,” offered Quentin, moving a little closer and sitting down. “Don’t worry if you can’t remember everyone’s name though—there’s a lot of us, we know. I’m Quentin,” he added.

“You know us,” said Nea, gesturing to herself and Ace with the arm that wasn’t around Feng, “But so you don’t have to ask if you’ve forgotten, Nea, Ace. And the hot one’s Feng.”

Feng smiled and elbowed her.

“Jake,” said Jake, nodding at him.

“We met, but Kate,” said Kate, smiling and sitting down cross-legged close to Claudette, “Claudette, Adam, Tapp,” she added, indicating the other people who’d been in her trial with her.

“Dwight,” said Dwight, feeling a little ridiculous introducing himself to the same person three times in one day. Still, he remembered being in university classes where they’d made you do the thing where you went in a circle saying your name and the names of everyone who’d gone before you, and that was hard as shit. Like six people you didn’t know maximum was memory capacity. Plus, he’d had his own trouble remembering names recently, and it was really, really not fun to have to ask people that when you knew it was something you should have just known on your own.\

“Laurie,” said Laurie.

“Which just leaves me,” said David, “An ahm David.”

“Philip,” said Philip, looking around the assorted group, “But you know that.”

“You aren’t missing a whole lot,” said Jake, “But those two are the ones who dragged you here to patch you up,” he said indicating Claudette and Dwight, “and you have them and these three to thank for most of this,” he added, indicating Kate, Meg, and Quentin.

Kate gave him a warm smile. “We’re pretty much old friends.”

“And you’re married to me,” added Meg.

“No,” said Quentin, “No, you’re not.”

The second of panic that had flickered across Philip’s face disappeared and he looked down at Meg with an indescribable look on his face. “You like to cause trouble, I think,” he said.

“I don’t know how much you forgot, but if you remember me at all, you gotta remember that,” agreed Meg, nodding.

He picked her up easily with both arms and lifted her off his lap, setting her down beside him.

“It’s on the table, though?” asked Meg as he let go.

“I think you are much younger than me,” replied Philip, trying not to look amused, but the corner of his mouth was twitching.

“How old are you?” asked Meg.

Philip started to answer and then looked surprised. “I’m not sure…” he said. “Thirty…four…thirty six?”

“Okay, you got me a little,” admitted Meg, “Twenty-two, but that’s only…Twelve, fourteen years,” she finished, counting.

Philip shook his head at her.

“Would you like coffee?” asked Claudette, dying from second-hand embarrassment and desperate to change the subject, “Or something to eat? We don’t have much variety, but it’s not too bad.”

Philip looked intrigued but hesitant. He glanced towards the fire. “You all have food?” he asked.

“Don’t you eat?” asked Meg, giving him a look.

“Yes—I mean, I can,” answered Philip, “But I didn’t know we had to. Or, we must not. I haven’t in…it’s been a long time.”

“Well, we got lots to talk about, I’m sure,” said Kate, standing back up and moving over towards the campfire, “But you’re welcome to have some.”

“What do you have,” asked Philip, looking over at Claudette.

“Basically oatmeal, really,” she replied.

For some reason that seemed to be amusing to Philip. A smile flickered across his face for just a second.

“It isn’t bad though,” she continued hopefully.

“I would be quite grateful in accepting,” said Philip, “Thank you.”

The group shifted generally towards the fire, finding comfortable seats on or against the logs, or on the dirt. Dandelion coffee had become a pretty big thing for everyone, and as weird as it was to sit down and have coffee and brunch in some hellish pocket dimension with someone who’d routinely been murdering you and your friends for several years, they did it anyway, and it was kind of nice.

Seeing him eat, Dwight really could believe Philip hadn’t had anything in something like thirty years. He’d never seen someone so happy to have oatmeal and coffee—and they were all pretty big fans of Claudette’s stuff themselves. She’d looked happy and gotten very quiet, which Dwight knew at this point meant she was embarrassed and overjoyed at the same time—something that happened not infrequently if people complimented her too strongly. Back when it had just been him and Jake and Claudette and Meg as a group, some of them kind of standoffish and everyone trying to find their footing as a unit, it had been one of Meg’s icebreaker moves to go after Claudette relentlessly with Leslie Knope level ridiculous, endless compliments, and she hadn’t been able to take it. It had been awhile since Dwight had seen Claudette look this happy, though, and he was glad to have it back.

For some of the others, it was a little more awkward. Tapp was a lot less suspicious than he’d been, but still cautious with Philip, and while Adam seemed to take everything really easily for someone Dwight would have expected to have the most trouble with it, since he was new, Feng and David were still a bit slow warming up, like they just didn’t know what to do with Philip. Meg carried a lot of the weight though, driving everyone like a nightly talk-show host, doing everything in her power to make people laugh and feel more comfortable.

On top of that, Ace and Nea seemed to be a lot more casual with Philip after this last trial, and Quentin and Kate didn’t have any trouble at all. Neither did Jake, which honestly surprised Dwight, but he was grateful for.

After giving people a few minutes to feel the situation out, they started to talk strategy. Slowly but steadily, Dwight they went over most of what they knew, and hoped to get from Philip, and Philip did his best to answer what questions he already could. There was a lot of ground to cover, and Dwight knew there wasn’t time to go over all of it, so he didn’t—just the biggest things. Most of that came down to anything new Philip could get from the Entity about how it worked and how it chose killers and survivors, and if he knew any reason they might be able to make some headway with any of the other killers—which he didn’t. He said mostly the only two he’d really interacted with were Evan, the Trapper, and Sally, the Nurse, and that both interactions had been a long time ago, and pretty sparse, as far as he remembered, but that he could see about trying to find out more about the other killers as well.

“It would no be too odd for ya to ask it about how it chooses other killers, right?” asked David, pausing to swallow a big swig of coffee. “An that could be a good lean-in ta askin’ about how it might be gettin’ new ones.”

“Yes, I think I can do that,” agreed Philip, who had scarfed down the first two-thirds of the porridge he’d been given like, well, like a man who hadn’t eaten anything in years, and was now doing his best to make what he had left last despite multiple offers from Claudette to just get him more.

“Do you at least know what languages they speak?” asked Feng, “So we could try to talk to some of the others?”

For the most part, this was guesswork for them. They were pretty sure the Spirit was Japanese, which thankfully Adam could speak, and that the Trapper was American, based on Claudette’s take on the flora in his trial areas, and they knew for sure that the Shape, Pig, and Nightmare were all from North America, but nobody wanted to talk to those three at all. Nea had been claiming for the past two weeks that the Huntress had to be Russian, because she recognized the song she was singing as some creepy Russian lullaby, but not everyone was sold on this, because Nea wouldn’t tell anyone how she knew this. The most anyone had ever gotten her to say was that she used to be deep into a comic and show that she’d done a lot of historical research for, and one of her favorite characters was Russian. Which was a pretty reasonable explanation, so it just made it more confusing she wouldn’t tell anyone what it was.

“I am not sure they will listen,” said Philip, “Evan was very single-minded, and looking back, I think he understood the situation correctly. It has been a long time since I spoke with him, but he always acted like he ranked higher than me and thought I was stupid. We did not get along fantastically.”

“Rivals?” asked Meg, “Is that a thing with you guys?”

“I’m not sure,” replied Philip, “On either count. Sally was…not all there. But again, it has been a long, long time. Still, I know they both speak English. If you had to try with one of them, I would definitely recommend Sally over Evan, but both seem unlikely to respond well. Of the others, I’m not as sure. The Hillbilly speaks English, as does the Doctor, but the rest I have not heard speak or seen clearly understanding being spoken to. I can try to find out.”

“It’s still just so weird you all can talk,” said Nea. “You _never_ do.”

“Are you all not supposed to talk to us?” asked Dwight, leaning forward, cupping his hands around his can of coffee for warmth. “Since no one except the Nightmare ever does?”

“Yes,” answered Philip.

“Is that why you would wouldn’t talk to us for so long?” asked Claudette, looking up at him.

Philip didn’t answer right away, and looked a little embarrassed.

“I mean, you don’t seem to have any trouble doing it, right?” asked Nea, taking a bite of her own bowl of food.

“It’s not that…It,” he stopped and sighed. “It has been a long time,” he said after a second, looking tired. “Since I had done it. I wasn’t sure I would do it correctly.”

“Really?” asked Adam, “Your English is flawless. Maybe a little formal, but you certainly don’t have any trouble with it.”

“I know it’s formal,” replied Philip uncomfortably, “That is on purpose. If you speak formally, people think you are too stiff, but if you do it informally, people look at you like you are too stupid to understand the language correctly.”

“Then you punch them in the nose,” said Feng with her mouth full, stealing a bite of Nea’s food, “I speak four languages, two fluently, and I have a big accent in all of them. People give you shit gaming all the time, but if they don’t like it, fuck them. Most noobs can only speak one badly anyway, and I’m better than all of them.”

Philip looked amused and smiled for a second.

“So, if you never hang out with the other killers, you probably don’t know if the Huntress is available?” asked Meg, looking intensely engrossed in whatever line of internal thought had brought her to that topic switch.

“The Huntress?” asked Philip, surprised, “No. But I would not recommend trying—she attacks anyone who goes near her, even other reapers.”

“Damn, all you unavailable killers,” said Meg, leaning forward on her knees. “I guess I could always try the Shape. He’s a snack.”

Laurie choked on her coffee and started coughing.

“MeG!” said Claudette, shoving her knee.

“What?” asked Meg, grinning at her, “I mean he’s stab-happy and creepy, sure, and let’s be honest, that William Shatner mask isn’t doing anybody any favors, but that physique? Boy could be some prime,”

“Don’t,” said Claudette.

“Daddy,” she kept right on.

“Stop it!”

“Material,” Meg finished, looking gloriously proud of the rise she’d gotten.

“That’s way too kinky,” said Feng, shaking her head.

Claudette covered her face.

Doubled over, Laurie couldn’t stop coughing, and Ace leaned over and patted her on the back, a little worried too much of it had gone down her windpipe.

“I’m so sorry about her,” said Jake, looking past them to Philip. “I can’t explain. She’s just like this.”

Philip didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything.

“You gonna be okay?” Quentin asked Laurie as she finally managed to stop hacking and start breathing again. She didn’t answer either.

“Joking, joking,” said Meg, looking over at Laurie, a little worried she’d gone too far. “I know he’s a terrible person who killed a lot of people. Sorry.”

Laurie waved it off, still bent over trying to breathe right.

“What about the basement?” asked Tapp, still on task. “You were going to look at it, right?”

“I did,” replied Philip. “There are cracks in the walls, and light beyond them, but it is too bright to see past. I do know the light past the wall moves, though. On top of that, I can always hear the Entity speaking when in the basement. Not to me, but I know its voice. Its presence is strong there. There is also always blood on the floor, no matter how much time has passed since someone was placed there, but it is not like normal blood.”

“No?” asked Claudette, lowering her hands.

“It doesn’t stick to my feet or ripple, like blood and water should. And it reflects, but not the ceiling. Looking into the reflection is like looking at an organ. Tissue and build that are similar. But there is nothing odd about the ceiling. It is just reflecting something else,” he finished.

“Any idea what that means?” asked Ace.

Philip shrugged. “Maybe the basement is close to its core.”

“It’s funny, about the blood,” said Claudette, “You know, I’ve noticed a lot of water here is like that. I always have a hard time collecting any even in the Red Forrest, where it rains. Thank you, Philip,” she added, looking up at him, “That’s good. I think I can try to work on that.”

He nodded.

“Well, we probably shouldn’t keep this up too much longer,” said Dwight, not happy about having to pull the plug, but knowing it was smarter than chancing it forever with the Entity. “We have a next step going forward, and we’ve all asked you a lot of questions, and tried to give you probably too many short versions of what you missed, but do you have any questions for us?”

“Yes,” said Philip, holding his tin of mostly finished coffee between his hands like Dwight was, for the warmth. “If there is time. I seem to have already told my story, but I don’t know much about who any of you are. I am at a disadvantage. And, I would like to know. As people, who you are.”

“Oh, okay,” said Dwight, a little surprised. “Sure. Uh. I guess I’ll start. I’m Dwight. I worked a boring office job before this. I mostly liked video games and sleeping on the weekend. So that’s…all pretty boring, I guess. I got ditched and then lost after a trip with some workmates out in the woods, and ended up here.”

“That’s not very good, Dwight,” said Meg disapprovingly. “He’s also the leader,” she added, turning to Philip, “Because he’s good at strategy. He likes fixing problems, and he’s physically pretty damn weak, but he thinks fast on his feet, and we listen to him because he’s actually pretty smart and he kept proving it until we had to take him seriously.”

“Thanks,” said Dwight like he wasn’t sure how to take the backhanded compliment, because he wasn’t.

“I’m Meg, I like long walks on the beach, giving people a hard time, and I’m pretty fun. Also, great at sports,” Meg finished.

“She’s also the only reason we ever have any fun,” said Nea, “She does a show called ‘Welcome to Hell’,”

“’with Meg Thomas,’” Meg added under her breath.

“And it’s super funny,” said Nea.

“She also remembers every story she’s ever heard and recreates them pretty well,” added Laurie.

“I’m Nea, which you already know. I used to do a lot of trespassing and street art, and I’m damn good at it. I like paint and doing slightly dangerous things and heights, and I can shred it with a skateboard” said Nea.

“Feng, and I’m a pro gamer. Part of a team called the LazerBears, and my tag was Shining Lion,” said Feng, picking up right where Nea had finished, “DPS and tanks exclusively. My parents don’t care for me, and I’m great at winning. Also at fixing gens and breaking killer strategies.”

“Yes, I knew that part,” replied Philip. “You are a ‘pro gamer’?”

They all kind of froze up suddenly, and Philip looked around the group, confused at the sudden change in tone.

 _Shit,_ thought Dwight. _That’s right, he’s from 1982._

“Is it a sport?” asked Philip, looking more and more uneasy as the people around him continued not to answer, and to trade looks. He looked at Adam, and then Claudette and Dwight, but it was Laurie who finally answered.

“When I got stuck here, it was October. 1978,” she said, shifting to lean forward a little.

Philip looked genuinely surprised, and tilted his head, like he was trying to remember something. “You were before me,” he said after a moment, looking back at her.

“Yeah,” she said, looking a little sad. “1982, right?”

He gave a nod, then another nervous glance at the faces around him.

“You know it’s been a little while right?” Laurie asked, her voice soft.

Philip hesitated and then nodded again. “It must have been some years,” he said slowly.

“We don’t know for sure what year it is anymore,” said Laurie quietly, “but it’s at least 2017.”

Philip opened his mouth to say something and then stopped and closed it, and didn’t do anything. He was quiet for a few seconds, looking at nothing, thinking. “2017?” he asked after a second, voice almost a whisper.

Laurie nodded.

“Thirty-five years,” said Philip softly.

No one else knew what to say. It had been rough knowledge for several of them, but none of them except Laurie were dealing with the kind of time loss Philip had.

“You too?” asked Philip, looking back at Laurie.

She nodded again. “Yeah. Forty. Give or take.”

“I am sorry,” he said, face still, almost unreadable.

“I’m sorry too,” replied Laurie, her expression a similar, but slightly softer, slightly sadder version of his.

It was very, very quiet.

“Do you still have anyone to go back to?” Laurie asked.

Philip turned his head a little and said nothing for a few moments, and then, in a quiet voice, “I am not sure.”

“Yeah,” she replied after a second, voice gentle.

No one said anything for a minute. No one knew what to say. Philip sat there, looking down into his coffee while half of them watched, and the other half uncomfortably tried not to. Finally, after the silence had gone on for a while, he looked back up.

“Please,” said Philip, voice hard to read, “Go on.”

“Are you sure?” asked Claudette. “You’re okay?”

“I’m sure,” said Philip, “It should not change getting to know you. And it was better to find out sooner than later.”

It was quiet for a second, because no one wanted to go. “I’m Jake,” said Jake finally, biting the bullet. “My family and I don’t really talk, they’re rich, and I have an older brother. I live in the woods in a cabin and I like it. Hunting, fishing, hiking, being alone—all of it. I’m good with tools.”

“Adam, I’m a Professor. I teach English at a school in Kagoshima,” said Adam, picking up the torch, “I enjoy studying and learning, basically anything I can get my hands on. I was born in Jamaica, and raised by my uncle Corbin Francis, who is where I got most of my interest and skill in studying from. I greatly enjoy traveling, but I also like getting to stay home and read.”

“Laurie,” said Laurie, “I’m from 1978, and no one will tell me how _Star Wars_ ends. I also like to read. Guess it’s not a super special hobby. Uhm. I don’t really know what else to say. I like kids, because they’re better than grownups, and nicer. I used to babysit a lot, and I guess I’m apparently good at not getting killed. I’ve been here a long time, and I have no idea how old I am.”

 “I’m sorry, I don’t know how it ends either,” replied Philip. “The last one had not come out, or I would tell you.”

“Ace, I’m from Argentina, my parents are both great, but we were dirt poor,” said Ace, pouring himself more coffee. “I’m the best and worst kind of gambler, because I win all the time, and then lose all the money. I enjoy drinks, middle aged women, my sense of fashion, and I’m a fan of cats.”

“David, from Manchester,” continued David, shifting in his seat. “I got a good family an ah like getting’ into fights, an sports, an city life. Boxin’, tv dramas. Pub food.”

“He’s also very strong, and protects everyone all the time,” said Meg, turning to Philip.

“Yeah,” agreed Quentin, smiling at David, “He doesn’t know when to quit. But in a good way.”

“Same could be said ah you,” replied David, giving Quentin a look, “This’n causes trouble all the time tryin’ ta help everyone instead of workin’ on gens—like her,” he added, indicating Claudette, “Though to be fair he’s damn good at it. And at getting’ out alive.”

“Yeah, I’m also hard to kill, I guess,” said Quentin, “I’m from Ohio. I don’t really know what else to say, though. I like prog and post-punk music, I guess.”

“You were a student?” prompted Philip helpfully.

“Uh—yeah, but just in high school. So I wasn’t really studying anything yet. I might be interested in being a doctor, though,” he added after a second, seeming a little happy to have remembered that. “Or maybe study mythology. I guess there’s probably no jobs in that. That’s—that’s a stupid thing to be thinking or worrying about now, though.”

“Family?” asked Philip.

“My dad,” said Quentin, a lot more quietly. “He’s cool,” he added after a second.

Philip nodded, and then turned to Feng. “No one has told me what a pro gamer is, still. Can you explain?”

“Oh,” she said, looking surprised. “Yeah—it’s pretty simple. Computer games got real big, and now people treat them like sports. I’m really good at shooting games, and I play competitively, as part of an organized team. I’m super high-tier.”

“I should not be surprised by that,” said Philip thoughtfully, “How much has changed?”

“Kind of a lot,” said Nea, still working on her bowl of oatmeal, “But also kind of nothing. Cars are better, computers are smaller and faster and better, but like, nothing flies except planes. Phones take pictures and don’t have cords, but like, no teleportation, or jetpacks.”

“Nothing terrible?” asked Philip, looking suddenly worried as it occurred to him, “No more world wars?”

“Not world size, no,” answered Claudette, “But there’s always wars and earthquakes and bad stuff.”

“A lot of them?” asked Philip.

“A decent number, I guess,” said Dwight, trying to remember what wars had happened and in what order correctly since Vietnam.

“The cold war ended without escalating like everyone thought,” Jake added.

“There has been war in Nigeria,” said Adam, watching Philip carefully.

“Bad?” asked Philip, looking up at him quickly, the most unguarded look of worry on his face Dwight had ever seen.

“It always is,” replied Adam, sincerely and gently at the same time.

Philip was quiet for a second, looking down at the fire. “Why?” he asked after a moment, looking back up at Adam.

Adam shrugged. “Religion, politics, and oil.”

“Of course,” said Philip quietly.

Everyone was quiet again for a few seconds. _I wonder if he still had family there? Probably,_ thought Dwight, feeling stupid for not thinking about that before.

“That just leaves you three,” said Philip after a moment, looking from Claudette to Kate and Tapp.

“Not a lot to tell,” answered Tapp, “I’m a detective. In New Jersey. Chased down a lot of sick fucks, missed one. Lot of people are dead because of it. No family.”

“Friends?” asked Philip.

“Not living,” replied Tapp, shrugging like it was no big deal. “But ghosts are something. Still got unfinished business with some of them.”

Tapp and Philip locked eyes for a second, and Philip nodded solemnly, like he understood that. Maybe he did.

“I’m from Pensylvannia—I know, the accent’s all Nashville. Kind of a long story,” said Kate, prompted by a look from Philip, “I got a mom and dad and a brother, they’re all great. I’m a singer, and I write my songs and play guitar. Or I did. Used to have mine here in the fog, too, but I lost it in my first trial—with the Clown. Still a singer, though. Probably drives everyone a little crazy, but they put up with it outa kindness,” she added, smiling.

“I’m from Montreal,” said Claudette, tucking her knees up to her chest. “Mom and dad. They’re really smart, and dad does local theater. Mom draws. I’m mostly good at botany.”

“She’s also way nicer than the rest of us,” said Meg.

“I am not,” countered Claudette. “They just like teasing me about getting pushed around easily.”

“How about you?” said Dwight, looking over at Philip. He looked back at Dwight, surprised. “I mean, we all know you’re form Wisconsin originally, and Nigeria before that. Worked at an autoyard. But what about your family? If you don’t mind telling us, that is,” he added, a little worried what he’d hoped would be inclusive was overstepping.

“I don’t mind,” said Philip after a moment. “My father has passed,” he continued in a quiet tone, fond and sad at the same time, “But he was called Fuad. My mother…was alive. Very kind, and strong. Her name is Nneka. I also have a brother, sister-in-law, and a niece. Isa. Isaiah,” he added, like he was correcting himself. “Older than me, but he never acts like it. His wife is Lami, and their daughter Daima. Smart, and very strong-willed.”

“Did they come with you to the states?” asked Adam.

“No,” replied Philip. He took a breath, and his expression changed, like he had made a decision, and he stood up, setting his empty tin of food and can of coffee on the ground.

The others watched, waiting. Dwight knew he was going to go, and it was time, but part of him wondered if Philip needed the time now. To think about the thirty-five years he’d missed. _God, what would I even do? If some new person arrived and told me it was 2046? I can’t fucking imagine,_ he thought, feeling a little sick at the purely hypothetical situation. There were things he really wanted to do when he got back—to say to people. He didn’t know what he’d do if he found out he couldn’t.

“I know it is not enough for me to really know you, and since I have forgotten before, I expect this gets tiring for you,” said Philip, looking a little uncomfortable, “But, I would like to know you, so thank you. But Dwight is right. I should return to my own place now. It is better to underestimate how long it will take to be missed than to take risks, and it is not safe for me to stay. But I am glad I got to come here. I did not think I ever would. Although, apparently I have before.”

“We’re glad too,” said Meg, standing up too, along with most of the others. “You have no idea how good it is to have you back.”

“And thank you for the food,” Philip added, turning from Meg to Claudette, “I have not had any in what appears to be 35 years, and it’s very good. I had forgotten.”

She lit up.

“I will find out what I can,” said Philip, looking at Dwight. Then he turned to Quentin. “You can show me the hatch?”

Quentin nodded and moved over to a space on the ground about fifteen feet away. Philip followed, and so did the rest of the group.

“It’ll only work for a couple seconds,” said Quentin, holding out a key with a little pendant and a glass ornament attached to its base to Philip, “And we’ll need the medallion back before you go, so we can do this again next time. It’s the only one we have.”

Philip gave a nod and took the key.

“Hey, I know you don’t remember last time,” Quentin added as Philip knelt at the invisible hatch beside him, “But you really didn’t want to go back and forget, but you did it anyway. For us. So thank you.”

“We’ll see you pretty soon,” said Claudette, kneeling with them and holding out a hand. Philip smiled at her and took the hand in his for a second.

“Yeah, and draw me for a trial next time,” added Meg, crouching on the opposite side of the hatch, “We’re old rivals and I haven’t had a real good chase in ages now.”

“That isn’t up to me,” said Philip, looking amused, “But I’m sure it will happen sooner or later.”

“For the record, I did guess your name once,” said Meg. “We had a challenge going on for a long time over that. You didn’t ever admit it, but I did.”

“Did I give it away when you guessed it?” asked Philip.

“Nope—stone faced it,” replied Meg.

“Good for me,” replied Philip. “That would have been hard.” He turned to Quentin. “How do I do this?”

“You just have to want it to work,” said Quentin, “Or believe it will—both? It’s already got power in it—you should be able to feel that. They keys kind of vibrate. Just focus that into making the lock appear, and it will.”

Philip looked a little dubious, but he turned and his expression became focused, and then the lock appeared at his fingertips, like he’d been told it would. He almost looked surprised that it had worked for him, but Philip slipped the key into the lock and turned it without hesitation. The little piece of glass shattered, and the hatch swung open, and Philip turned and handed the key and the medallion back to Quentin.

He stood then, hesitating at the top of the hatch, and looked back over the group around him. “Goodbye,” said Philip, after a moment, “For now.”

“Goodbye,” said Dwight, joined a half-second later by a dozen similar sentiments or waves, and feeling way more sad and worried than he had any real reason to.

“Don’t forget about us this time,” said Meg, who had clearly meant for that to sound light-hearted and teasing, but it came off tinged with just a hint of fear, and Dwight glanced over and saw to his surprise that she looked like she was having a hard time not crying.

Philip gave her a little half bow, and for some reason everyone in the group except him and Adam reacted to that—most of them looking sad, or braced, or like they’d taken a hit, or were having suddenly to _try_ to not look like it had meant anything to them.

 _Last time?_ wondered Dwight, wishing he hadn’t missed that.

Finishing the motion, Philip turned to go, and Meg and Claudette traded looks and then stepped forward together and hugged him, and Philip hadn’t been looking, and started in surprise at the touch, almost jerking away, and then looked down at them, awkwardly unsure what to do.

“She’s not kidding, come back this time,” said Claudette, eyes closed and arms wrapped around him. Philip nodded, still looking surprised and completely uncertain how to proceed. She let go of him, then, and after a second Meg did too.

 _Holy shit, is she crying?_ thought Dwight, staring at Meg. Philip had a similar expression on his face.

“Don’t worry—I’m good,” said Meg, waving him off, “You better go.”

“I will,” said Philip, “And I will do my best to come back.” He reached out as he spoke, like he was going to put a hand on Meg’s shoulder, but he drew it back, second-guessing himself, and straightened up. He gave the group a final nod and then turned and dropped down the hatch, vanishing into the darkness below as the door closed behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Hatch has some of the most interesting lore associated with it. In official gam cannon, it is implied but not confirmed that Vigo created it, but it was definitely one of the survivors who was responsible. Keys are interesting as well. The fog/dark mist hasn’t really been discussed much here, but it’s a super interesting double-edged sword, since it protects survivors and makes them harder to find, but also apparently infects physically and effects them sort of like a drug. So, even though it’s a poison, it’s one no one really has the power or the will to avoid completely. It also seems to actively /block/ things sometimes, as a key only can open a black lock by leeching the fog into itself (or into a token sacrificed to protect the key itself), which causes the key or token to break. And the key is supposed to be one of, if not the, most innately powerful items survivors can find.   
> A lot of items in the game sort of have an "original"--the first version on which all the others in the realm are sort of based (like Alex's toolbox), since the Entity replicates things in the world it makes, and actually 'creates' very little. Which implies that probably these originals were things people brought into the fog with them when taken. So, if say, Kate's guitar was very useful for something, enough so to be written into the memory of trials, it could become an item that the fog itself generates. Lots to consider there, and I love it. Almost everything associated with the keys is a religious item of some sort, as are some of the map add-ons. Vigo himself is specifically attached to the rainbow map, and the use of cords as part of a ritual practice to extend a map's ability (such as the black silk cord to let one track the hatch). The ability of items which have mechanics like magic seems very tied to belief. For example, every single offering that effects luck is described as something which “some believe” brings good luck or good fortune, which implies maybe that the person using an item with an established purpose doesn’t need to have faith, but the person who gave the item the ability to do what it does in the first place does need to. Similarly, Ace’s Up The Ante is based on his own belief that he truly is a lucky person. So, Quentin being someone who genuinely still believes that his faith offers him some hope or protection, ought to be able to pull off solidifying the hatch if he really believed it would work. Especially since he wouldn’t be thinking of it so formulaically, and more operating on belief, thus giving his medallion an ability others can use now, like all other key add-ons. In a lot of ways, parts of how the Entity’s realm works are a bit like the how the dream world itself in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise can be affected by perception, belief, and fear.   
> As an interesting side note, it also seems like either the Entity developed the trial process into what it is now, or sometimes people used to slip through the cracks (implied by a lot of the cannon lore, such as the hallowed blight event, where someone got lose, went wandering around, and actually captured at least one killer and experimented on them. As well as by the reveal that somehow Vigo created for himself a lab base of operations, not the campfire, and used it regularly for some period of time).
> 
> Well, I remember saying there wouldn't be any more chapters as long as this one until the end. Like a liar, apparently. But it sincerely should be scarce. Thank you so much to everyone who reads, and the comments are greatly appreciated! This is really a great experience, and I’m very glad to be able to write it. I really love hearing people’s thoughts on things. There shouldn’t be another long monster like this for a bit, so that should help, but thank you all as well for bearing with me. And thank you again to everyone for all the support! It means the world.
> 
> Also, as a final, much shorter side note, Michael Myers’ mask really is just a William Shatner mask painted white. This is not a joke. It’s the truth. The filmmakers really just did that. And, since it’s never stated in film cannon that it isn’t the case, I feel like it’s only fair that Laurie knows the local market painted a bunch white and sold them as Halloween masks, because she’s been through so much she ought to have that ammunition to drag her brother with.


	31. Trial and Error

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girlfriends spend some quality time together, a new killer arrives, Feng faces a hard choice, and Quentin makes a worrying discovery.

“A lot of people who don’t play her think keeping high charge is the hardest part, but actually the thing people do wrong the most is the timing on her shields,” said Feng, pausing to shake a can of spray paint, “But it’s actually pretty easy once you learn the ropes. You just have to predict what people are going to do and pay attention to everything—battlefield awareness. I mean yeah, sometimes it just won’t work out, or you’ll pop it just too late or early, but it’s not that hard to get down to a science.”

“I’m kind of surprised you went for someone who does shielding,” said Nea, adjusting Feng’s aim a little and pointing to part of the symbol they’d already painted on the rock, “Okay—you want to ease up just a little or you’ll get too much splatter. Yeah, you got it.”

Feng hadn’t been a natural at spray paint, but she’d picked it up fast. They hadn’t been able to do it a whole lot, though, because spray paint wasn’t easy to come by. Nea had had some on her when she broke into the old asylum to throw some art up on a dare, but those bottles had long since been used. Every so often she’d find one digging through a crate, or in a corner, and snag it—or one of her friends would, but that was few and far, far between. She’d been hoarding them up lately, ever since Dwight had suggested she try and teach Feng some, and today was only the fourth time they’d really gone at it painting. Between, Nea had been showing her how she did sketch designs for ideas, and had been helping her develop one for herself. Back before this all, as a big-name pro-gamer, Feng had been Shining Lion, and she’d wanted to hold onto the tag. The design the two of them had worked up after a lot of scrapped ideas involved a lioness curled to pounce, her body forming an almost circular shape, and catching some movement behind her she was focused on, she had her ears perked, teeth bared, and her visible eye had the classic Shonen-anime ‘target-acquired’ light _shing,_ leaving a line of light in a horizontal line in front of and across her body. And it was all blues and silvers—which Feng had picked out herself. There had been about thirty other sketches Nea had made—all involving a lioness, some just a head, some pawprints or claws, one had been a lion with a girl on the back holding an AK-47, but they’d all been ditched for being too simple, or too complex, or too silly, or over the top, or just not Feng enough.

Sure, Nea knew enough about picking a tag and Feng that she expected even this design would change drastically—maybe lose the lioness all together, but Feng was happy with it. They’d found a big rock in the woods to throw it up on, and were going through layers for shading and depth right now, but most of the lioness was there.

“Lookin’ good,” added Nea, surveying the work, “You’re getting the hang of this. Once we get out of here, there are so many places I have to take you tagging.”

“You think?” asked Feng, wiping her face with a sleeve to try to get a smudge of paint off her chin.

“I told you that would happen if you got way too close to what you were spraying,” laughed Nea, leaning over to try and help her flick it off, “But, yeah, you’re getting the hang of it. Do you like it?”

“I do,” said Feng, looking back at their lioness, “But I think you’re lying about me being good at it.”

Nea laughed, “Girl, if you feel like this is bad, you should see some of the shit I used to do—hell, anyone starting. And some who’ve been doing it forever. Some people never learn how to do anything besides lay down a one-spray track. So sad,” she added sorrowfully.

Feng laughed and went back to working on her lion, carefully trying to add a shade layer for depth. “Hey,” she said after a second, not looking at Nea, “What do you think of the Wraith?”

“Hm?” asked Nea, taken off guard, “You mean—like as a person?”

“Yeah,” replied Feng, still focused on the paint, “I’ve sort of talked to him I guess, you’ve like _met_ him now. More one-on-one.”

“I think he’s genuine,” said Nea, shrugging, “And not that scary once you get to know him. Kind of sweet. I feel bad for the guy.”

Feng nodded thoughtfully, eyes still on her work. “You think we can really trust him?”

“Oh, for sure,” said Nea, like it was a no-brainer. Honestly, he looked more miserable about killing me than I’d probably feel doing it myself—and I’m a pretty big fan of me being alive. Not gonna lie, though,” she added, crouching beside her, “Dying on purpose as part of the whole ‘keeping up appearances’ thing is _not_ less painful than dying normally. Sucks a lot. But hey, I’m pretty hardcore,” she added, making a muscle.

Smiling, Feng leaned over and gave the bicep a kiss, then passed her can of spray paint to Nea. “Very brave.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” said Nea, grinning and switching the can out for her other blue and passing that one to Feng, “We’re probably gonna draw straws in the future, and you’re lucky as _fuck_ when it comes to that shit.”

“What do you mean?” asked Feng, taking the paint.

“Like, you’re always the one who ends up being last and getting the hatch in trials where everything goes to shit,” explained Nea. “It’s your true sight—you’re just too hard to catch.”

“I don’t _always_ make it out the match,” said Feng.

“Yeah, but a lot of the time you do,” countered Nea, “You’re just really good at strategy.”

It was true, but for some reason she couldn’t put her finger on, Feng didn’t like that it was.

“You’re sure about him, though?” asked Feng again, turning the conversation back away from herself.

“Yeah. Yeah, he’s nice,” said Nea, standing back up. “Which probably makes all of this having to play killer suck, a lot. Really wouldn’t want to be him right now.”

Feng made a sort of automatic _mmhmm_ , and then glanced over in Nea’s direction. “What do you think it’d be like, to be a killer?”

“For real, or on accident, like Philip?” asked Nea, sitting down and flipping open her sketchbook to pretend to go over some of the design details, but really so that she could try and sketch Feng.

Feng shrugged at the question, so Nea answered both.

“Well,” said Nea thoughtfully, “I guess if you were one for real, you’d get used to it. You know, like how the first time you drink or sneak out it’s a big deal, but the more times you do it the less it means anything? And eventually, it’s just kind of a thing. Even illegal shit like breaking and entering got normal for me. I’m sure it’s different with something like…you know…murder. But probably you eventually don’t feel anything.”

“How would that work?” asked Feng, stopping her work to sit down, rolling the spray paint can idly in her fingers, “I mean, people say I’m cutthroat, but I couldn’t just stab someone to death if they were begging me not to. And even if I did, because I was afraid of getting killed myself, or knew if I didn’t, someone else did _and_ I’d get hurt, how could you just stop feeling anything? Even if you had to do it.”

“I think it’s the other way around,” said Nea, erasing a line and blowing pencil shavings off the paper, then glancing up, “If you couldn’t stop feeling, how _could_ you keep killing? Wouldn’t it…I don’t know, kill you out of misery or some shit? People are pretty good and turning off parts of their brains to stay alive. Wasn’t there ever anything so shitty in your life that you had to get numb to it?”

Feng got quiet for a second, and studied the flecks of paint on her hands, thinking about the anger and disappointment in her parents faces, shit-talk behind her back from teammates and rivals, endless strings of hate and threats from strangers over games, and the way it had gotten so big when she started to crack under the pressure. The way she used to be able to shrug off messages telling her she was a worthless bitch who should go kill herself, because she’d known they were just mad she was better than them, and the way those messages had started to get harder and harder to read when she started to be afraid she wasn’t.

“I guess I’ve never been great at getting numb,” said Feng, looking back up.

“That’s good, it’s not healthy,” said Nea, tracing the little frown line at the side of Feng’s mouth in her sketchbook, “And don’t hear me excusing shits for getting numb to murder. I just think it’s maybe, vaguely, _sort of_ possible that some of the others are right, and even if none of the other killers were lied to like Philip, there could still be one in there who, under the right pressure and torture, could kill us on the reg and not be totally past getting to.” She paused for a second, and the expression on her face got darker, more serious than she’d been before. “I mean, I don’t think I’d ever go killer—not to you guys, not in a million years,” said Nea, looking back at Feng, “But after having actually…been tortured. Not hurt, not killed, but tortured. It’s…it’s _fucked_ Feng.”

They both knew she meant it. Krueger trials weren’t something anyone really _ever_ talked about, but the people who’d been through them, which was almost everyone now, they knew.

“In movies, people are always getting tied up and punched and hooked up to car batteries, and you think they’re weak and not cool if they talk, and the heroes never do—only the like, nobodies who have to for plot reasons, but it isn’t like that,” she continued, hand resting on the pad, sketch temporarily forgotten, “I would never have told anyone but you this, but short of hurting my friends, I think I would have done _anything_ if I had thought it might make him stop. And it was only like an hour. God knows how long some of these things have been here.”

Watching Nea’s expression, Feng felt like crying, which she _never_ felt like doing. She wanted to say something—to ask Nea if she was okay, or to say she was sorry, or to promise to kill the Nightmare for her, or ask if she wanted to talk, maybe, but she didn’t know how to say any of those things, or which was the right one, so she just said nothing and watched.

Even though she hadn’t said anything, Nea looked over at Feng and caught the look on her face and smiled, like that had been all she needed to feel better. “Don’t worry,” said Nea, tone much lighter, “It wasn’t that bad. I’m all in one piece.”

Feng tried to smile back, and half-managed, still feeling sick. She was one of the only ones out of everyone who had never been in a Krueger trial, and no one ever talked about what happened in them, but she’d asked Ace after the most recent one, since he seemed like the most likely person to actually tell her, and he’d given her two pieces of information to put together, and she had. Background, current occupation. At the same time she wanted to know details—wanted to know what the others had had to go through, she never wanted to hear about it—never, ever wanted to be the one stuck in one of the special trials with him herself, and knowing how strongly she felt that way made her feel guilty, because in this sense, her safety was a zero sum game. If she won, one of her friends was losing. She did her best to shake that train of thought off though, and after a second, she looked over at Nea and said, “You think the Entity tortures all the killers?”

Laurie had said that according to the Wraith, it definitely punished them for things, and he had so many scars all over him that it had made her wonder what exactly happened when the Entity decided to punish someone. He probably had more scars on the outside of his body than normal skin left. Feng would never admit it, but it made her skin crawl to think about that—about what kinds of things had to have happened to cause that.

“Dunno,” said Nea, shrugging and going back to her sketchbook, “Maybe only the ones it has to. Doesn’t seem like it takes much personal interest in what happens to any of us—only shows up to grab us when we die. We don’t see it at _all_ in-between. So, it might just hurt the ones who disobey it. That’s usually why people do torture, right? In the traditional sense—not the sick-fucks who get off on it way. It’s supposed to be to get something out of someone, yeah? —Information, compliance.”

“I guess so,” replied Feng, picking up the bottle of spray paint in one hand and walking back over to the rock. “The Spirit girl—she’s like our age. Do you think the Entity cut her up like that—to get her to work for it?”

Nea blanched at the thought and grimaced. “Eugh. I hope not. Why would it throw glass all up in her?”

“Why does the Wraith look like a tree?” countered Feng.

“We don’t know if that’s the Entity,” said Nea, “Maybe it’s just part of his mask.”

“Who thinks ‘spooky mask,’ and makes themselves look like a really tall tree?” asked Feng, priming the can. “He’s always been like, the least spooky looking of the whole group.”

“I mean, the Huntress and the Nurse aren’t _that_ spooky either,” said Nea, shrugging.

“The bag over her head doesn’t freak you out? And the dead wheezing?” asked Feng, turning to stare at Nea like she couldn’t believe it. “Did you never watch Paranormal Activity, or anything?”

“I was more _Scooby-Doo,”_ replied Nea, “Besides which, if the Nurse kills us, all she does is choke us to death. Like, I’m gonna be honest. Not that bad. Like I see she’s here to mori, I’m like ‘Take ME,’ honestly, if it’s between that shit and the hook? Asphyxiation could be worse.”

“Yeah, okay, I agree there—definitely the least bad way to get killed,” conceded Feng, “But when she’s all zippy-zoom behind you at lightspeed mach 15 swinging a bone saw, she’s scary.”

“Alright, alright—the surgical tools are creepy, and you do have me there,” said Nea, raising a hand in defeat.

Feng did her best to lay down the front paw of the lioness, spattering it a little, but doing a passible job. “What do you think?” she asked, turning back to Nea a little worried, because she knew she hadn’t done it right.

“Not bad at all,” said Nea, setting down the sketchbook and coming over to get a closer look. “But don’t be afraid to do lines in bursts instead of one motion, especially while you’re getting a little more used to control. You’ve already got a good handle on aim and distance, it’s just keeping it consistent. Here, I’ll show you.” She took the can of paint from Feng and lined the next few sections of the lioness with a set of four bursts. “It’s good to do long lines sometimes, especially if you’re dealing with straight lines, but for curves, try this a little right now,” she finished, hanging the can back.

Feng took it and followed the advice, laying a line of shading against the lioness’ belly. It actually worked pretty well. She’d expected huge blotches where she started and stopped bursts, but she could barely tell. Feng turned to Nea for approval and found her beaming.

“Damn that’s some fine work,” said Nea, putting an arm around Feng and pulling her over and into a kiss. Feng pulled away and laughed, because she didn’t want to laugh _while_ they were kissing, then put her hands behind Nea’s head and pulled her into a longer kiss, leaving paint flecks in her hair as their lips met and they both leaned into it, feeling the burst of warmth and closeness between them.

“You know, you could be a great street artist,” said Nea, smiling at her as they finally pulled apart, pausing to run her tongue over her lips for the taste that was still there.

“Maybe,” said Feng, trying to not look as pleased as that made her, “What about you? Ever think about gaming?”

“Well I have—I mean, not like you do, but I used to play games,” said Nea, “There was this one Spider-Man game on PS2 I used to love.”

“So adventure games?” asked Feng, “No shooters?”

“Yeah, but it was dope—you play that one?” asked Nea.

“No,” said Feng.

“Wait—hold up,” said Nea, holding out a hand, “You never played the PS2 Spider-Man game?”

“Nea, just ‘cause I’m pro gamer doesn’t mean I’ve played _every_ single game,” said Feng, a little miffed.

“Okay, but like, everyone I knew loved that game,” said Nea, “You never played it?”

“No,” shrugged Feng.  

“What about _Ace Attorney_?” asked Nea, “You know—Phoenix Wright? That’s my other favorite. I got it on my phone when I was 15 and played the whole set in like a month. You know what that is, right?” she asked, noticing the kind of blank look on Feng’s face.

“Yeah, I know it,” said Feng, “Marvel vs Capcom has him.”

“No—no, no, no,” said Nea despairingly, “That’s a fighting game like Smash Bros—that’s totally different.”

“Nea, I’m a pro gamer,” said Feng, “It takes a _lot_ of time. You basically spend all the time you have playing and practicing whatever game you’re great at so you’ll be the best you can be when you compete. Not a lot of time for other stuff.”

“What about when you just started playing though—like when you were little?” asked Nea.

“I started with MMOs,” said Feng.

“You should try an adventure game!” said Nea, suddenly going from distressed to looking kind of excited at the unexpected prospect of showing Feng games she _didn’t_ already know everything about. “They’re great. We could do one together!”

“I guess I could always try doing one for Twitch,” said Feng thoughtfully. “It could be interesting to see if my fans liked that.”

“Twitch? No—I just meant for fun,” said Nea.

“Streaming doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be fun,” contradicted Feng. “Streamers sound like they’re having a great time.”

“But I meant…” Nea stopped and frowned at the ground for a second, then looked back up at Feng and took a step forward, putting her hands on her friend’s shoulders. “Feng, have you _ever_ played a game for fun?”

“Competing _is_ fun,” said Feng, clapping her hands on Nea’s shoulders and matching her stance, “I like it.”

“Oh, I know you do—and sure, that’s true, but like, for the other kind of fun,” replied Nea, looking a little distressed, “The kind of fun where nothing bad happens if you fuck up, and you can start and stop whenever you want? Chill fun.”

“But I really do like competing,” said Feng again, this time more sincerely, “It’s kind of what I live for.”

“As the very wise taco girl once said,” said Nea, linking her arms behind Feng’s neck and leaning in, “Why not both?”

Feng giggled in spite of herself.

“I’m sure you’re the best Zarya the world’s ever seen,” said Nea, smiling at her, “But you should have days off where we try to figure out Kingdom Hearts or something. If all you ever do is compete, you’re missing out.”

“But Nea,” said Feng, slow smile creeping across her face, “No one understands _Kingdom Hearts._ They just like it anyway.”

“Okay, fair,” said Nea, rolling her eyes, “But you know what I mean.”

She did. And in all honesty, there might be some truth to it. Feng had genuinely loved gaming, and competing, and winning, but up near the end? When there had been nothing but that, and she’d lost control over her ability to make that keep happening? It had been bad. She’d thought she was fine, because her whole life was built on one pillar, but it had been one which seemed so solid, but when it had started to go she’d realized that if it went, she had absolutely _nothing._ Nowhere to run, no one to go to, nothing to live for. She was too proud to admit all of that, even to Nea, but.

“Well, I guess for you I could make time to do other stuff,” said Feng, “If we ever even get out of here that is.”

“I knew you’d come around,” said Nea, leaning in and kissing her.

It made Feng’s heart jump, and she wasn’t even sure if it was the kiss or how happy saying yes to just spending time had made Nea look. She wasn’t used to this—to people being able to make her feel warm, and wanted. It was weird, and it kind of scared her. It was so good that she didn’t want it to go away, but she had absolutely no control over if it did or didn’t, so she wanted to get used to feeling this way at the same time she was afraid to.

“We get out,” said Nea, breaking the kiss and leaning her forehead against Feng’s, “And you play all of _Ace Attorney_ with me, and in exchange you can teach me how to play McCree.”

“McCree?” asked Feng, making a face.

“What, do you think I would suck at him?” asked Nea, moving her head back a little to get a good look at Feng’s expression.

“No, I just figured you for a Sombra,” she replied, “You know. Turning invisible, sneaking around and fucking with the enemy, then running away—it’s how you play trials. But McCree’s fine; if you want, you could learn how to play him. Why him though? Because you played a shooter once, or because it’s Matt Mercer?”

“Nah, I just like the cowboy thing,” said Nea. “I’ve never played any online game like that.”

“Well I guess we’re going to have a cultural exchange,” grinned Feng, pulling Nea closer and looking up into her eyes, almost nose to nose.

“I got some time,” grinned Nea, going to pull her shirt off. Her arms were back halfway over her head when they heard a shout from camp, and then a rush of loud voices. Feng turned and Nea peeked over the edge of her half-removed shirt. They exchanged a quick glance and Nea tugged her shirt back down, turning to run towards camp with her. “This is homophobia is what it is,” she said to Feng, breathing hard as they broke into a sprint, “The Entity just hates lesbians.”

“Next time, we just keep making out, no matter how bad it sounds,” said Feng as they broke the tree line.

Ahead, a most of the others were gathered around David and Tapp. Feng and Nea came to a stop at the edge of the group, by Claudette.

“New killer,” she said quietly, not wanting to interrupt the conversation already going on between several of the others.

“Already?” asked Feng, much less quietly.

“Everyone seems kinda…tense,” said Nea, “Like, more than usual. Are they really bad?”

“Is no that,” said David, overhearing, and pausing from something he’d been saying to Meg to turn towards Nea, “But it’s different this time.”

The others stopped their discussion and made room for Nea and Feng to join. Adam was the only one missing—probably still in the trial.

“Is a kid,” said David, folding his arms and turning to them, “Ran into ‘em somewhere new. Ski place of some kind. Worked gens a bit and ah I saw Tapp get downed and ah went to help and saw this kid just runnin’ about, like any of us—never seen him before. But ah thought he was runnin’ from somethin’. He was keepin’ low, tyn’a hide. He saw me, an we both heard the heartbeat, and so ah tried ta help him, waved him over. We ran the place together, ‘n the second we stopped to hide he knifed me in the back, pulled out a mask’n put it on.”

“There’s a killer pretending to be one of us?” asked Nea, aghast, “That’s not fair! So what, we have to stop adding people to the group since they might be out to kill us?” she stopped for a second, looking worried, “Do you think the Entity knows—about…?”

David sort of shrugged, and Claudette shook her head. Tapp just looked angry.

“Kid played the same trick on me. Acted like he was stuck and needed help—caught in a trap or something. When I went to help, he stabbed me in the gut,” said Tapp.

“He has to know that trick will work a max of one times on everyone, though,” said Feng, “Unless he can shapeshift.”

“He did no look like any ah you—just some kid,” said David. “Maybe twenty. Think he did it cause ‘e could. But you all best be careful, just in case. Don’t buy it from anyone new for a bit, yeah?”

Feng and Nea nodded.

“What did he look like?” asked Meg, bringing the conversation back to where it had been before the other two had shown up.

“No that tall, blue hoodie. Sorta thin, I ‘spose,” answered David, thinking about it, “No that unusual. Tattoo at his throat.”

“What’s the mask look like?” asked Dwight.

“White, with a smile on it. Very stereotypical, like a smiley face, or a Walmart pin,” answered Tapp, “And the kid’s white, probably nineteen to twenty-two like David said. Maybe 5’11. Dark blue jacket with a hood, pants with a camo pattern, and a studded belt.”

“They don’t look like a normal killer at all, though?” asked Dwight, making sure, “No scars, no weird growths, or floating, or chunks of metal sticking out of his body?”

“No, boy looked like one of us,” answered David simply. “Closer to the Huntress’n anythin’, though she’s never been sneaky about huntin’ us.”

“Like the Shape,” said Laurie, who had been staring off into space, thinking, looking up to glance over at David, “It’s some normal guy with a knife.”

Claudette looked over at Laurie sympathetically, and for a second Feng thought she was going to say something, but she didn’t.

“Ah ‘spose so,” answered David.

“Well, at least we know what to look out for,” commented Jake after a moment.

“Yeah, I guess,” answered Quentin, looking troubled.

“Gotta wonder why,” said Ace, voicing the thought everyone had been mulling over. “Since know how this works, sort of. What do you think some high school, college kid did to end up here, playing games with the people he’s about to kill?”

“At least he doesn’t have a gun,” said Meg, trying to lighten the mood. “Can you imagine? You’re sitting there, trying to do a gen, and from clear across the map some bitch snipes you in the back of the head with a glock.”

“She has a point,” agreed Tapp, smiling a little, “No matter what fucked up shit this kid did to get here, it’s just another guy with a knife.”

There was a little lull then, which Jake and Laurie took as a sign it was time to go back to what they’d been doing before. Seeing this, Feng tugged on Nea’s sleeve an motioned with her head back towards the woods. “We probably still have time before one of us gets dragged into a trial,” whispered Feng, leaning over to whisper into Nea’s ear.

Nea grinned and linked arms with her and they turned back to the forest.

“Can you teach me how you did that?” asked Meg, hovering close to Tapp as they headed off. “How you like, pick up so much appearance so fast? I don’t even remember anyone’s eye color, and I’ve been looking at some of these nerds for years.”

“You want me to teach you to be observant?” asked Tapp, looking a little amused, “I think it’s more of a skill you hone than one you teach. If you just don’t have it…”

“Please?” asked Meg, clasping her hands together, “I want to sound smart too. Plus, I’ve been thinking about it, and I think after all this I could make a good detective. I’m super athletic.”

“Okay, I guess,” said Tapp, rubbing the back of his neck, “But you gotta take it seriously.”

“100 percent,” said Meg, ecstatic. “How do you find shit so fast in trials? I’m always struggling to get hex totems so I won’t die, but you like, find and eat those things like they were Raisin Bran and you wanted to be heart healthy.”

“Okay, you said you want to be more observant,” said Tapp, a non-serious reprimand in his voice, “Take it a step at a time.”

“Okay, what’s step one?” said Meg.

“Where did you have the notebook?” Feng heard a confused Tapp say behind them as she and Nea moved out of hearing range.

“Hey, is this cool?” asked Nea, pausing at the tree line, “Like, should we go back and talk to David? I know it wasn’t super bad—doesn’t sound like he even got mori’d, but…I mean, it’s a new killer, pulling shitty moves. Do you think that’s like the…nice thing to do?”

“I think he’s okay,” said Feng, looking back at the group. She hadn’t actually thought about if he was okay or not before she answered, because she’d just assumed he was. David always was. He did look okay, though. He was talking to Dwight, Claudette, Quentin, and Ace still. “See—most of the group is still there, and he looks fine,” she added.

“Okay,” said Nea, still seeming a little uncertain, “Yeah—you’re right. It’s probably no big deal.”

“Come on,” said Feng, taking her hand, “We promised to just ignore whatever next time, right? Stick it to the Entity?”

“Yeah,” replied Nea, grinning at that. She turned and flipped off the sky. “Fuck you, buddy. My girlfriend and I are gonna go fuck, and it’s gonna be hot.”

Feng giggled and tugged her with her, deeper into the woods.

 

* * *

 

 

 _Fuck yeah, suck on that, weird rabbit ears bitch,_ thought Feng, lighting the fifth generator. She didn’t even have to run or hide in a rush, because she knew where the Huntress was, and she was up on the house, within view but a ways off, and mid-chase with Meg. _Loop her, Meg. Damn that’s fun to watch._

It was pretty fun to watch. It had been a good trial, and the three before it had been not great, so it was a welcome change. Kate was getting shit _done._ She and Feng had bumped into each other at the start of the trial and knocked out a generator while the Huntress went after Quentin. She’d downed him and hooked him, but not before Meg started harassing her, and Kate had been able to save him easily and finish a second gen with him while Feng worked on a third. The Huntress wasn’t really _off_ her game or anything, it was just a lucky day for them. They’d all been having it rough, so everyone had decided to deal with the after effects of choking on fog and dump as many murky reagents on this trial as they could. Now the fog was so thick that _no one_ could see shit, and god. damn. if it hadn’t paid off.

Meg had been downed once, but Kate had drawn the Huntress off before she’d hooked Meg, and Quentin had gotten her back up, and in turn drawn fire for a little while as she stitched herself up, and then she and Feng had finished the third together. They were in the Red Forest, which was not a bad draw for them either. Sure—Huntress liked it too, since it was hers, but there were a lot of trees and things to hide behind. The hatchets were really, really fucking hard to avoid most times, but with this much fog, the Huntress was mostly having to resort to blind-throwing, or just chasing them down like every other killer, and she wasn’t used to that.  

Right after they’d started working on their fourth gen, the Huntress had heard them and come running, but they’d caught her humming in time and Feng had hidden while Meg drew her off again to the house, leaving Feng to finish it alone. About thirteen seconds ago, Quentin and Kate had finished a fourth, and just now Feng had gotten the last one. Home free.

 _Probably pissed she hasn’t got even one of us. Well suck it, scrub, get good,_ thought Feng, sliding to a hiding place by one of the exits, waiting a second before going to open it to make sure the Huntress was still chasing Meg and not going to come for the door.

The Huntress wasn’t anyone’s _least_ favorite killer to deal with, because she wasn’t especially malicious, but she wasn’t easy. It honestly felt less like being chased by a murderer, and more like being the unfortunate fox in a fox hunt.

Or, Feng expected that’s what it felt like for a fox. She’s never actually seen that kind of thing, even in movies—only heard people talk about it.

 _Who the fuck would hunt foxes for fun, anyway?_ she thought, flipping the switch on the exit, keeping an eye out over her shoulder.

“Hey,” said Kate, rounding a corner and jogging to a stop beside her. It had taken her a little longer to reach a gate because both of them were on this side of the trial ground, and the gen she and Quentin had finished right before was way across, by the basement and the shack, but it didn’t look like the sprint had given her any trouble. She looked as happy as Feng felt. “Pretty good one, huh?”

Feng grinned. The door made a sound as the second light above the switch lit up.

They heard pounding footsteps, and Quentin skidded to a stop behind them and caught his breath.

“Hi,” said Kate, looking over her shoulder at him.

“Hey,” he replied, straightening up. “Meg’s circling one more time before coming.”

“You do the honors,” said Feng, letting go of the switch so he could open the door himself. It wasn’t actually a grand gesture, Quentin could just open the exit doors faster, so it was good strategy.

He switched places with her, and the door let out a loud warning siren-sound as it prepared to open.

Behind them, they saw Meg coming, all smiles, vaulting a windowsill.

“Woo!” called Kate, grinning.

Behind Meg, the Huntress moved around the wall, dashing to catch up.

 _She’s faster than normal. Huh,_ thought Feng, watching them come, _But even if she catches up, she’s not going to have time to really stop her. Worst Meg’ll get is a good scrape on her shoulder or something. She’s damn fast._

It was true, and as Meg got within several yards all three of them knew she was going to make it. But the Huntress was so fast—had she always been that fast?

 _Wait,_ thought Feng, eyes widening as an earlier thought came full circle, and she opened her mouth to say something.

“Hex!” called Quentin, beating her to the punch as he reached the same conclusion she had a half-second faster.

The Huntress’ speed, her confidence, even though she had to know they’d all make it? Feng could see the moment Kate and Meg put the Huntress’ speed and Quentin’s warning together with one of the hexes they knew very well. She heard Kate whisper “Shit” under her breath.

The expression on Meg’s face changed, and she dove wide to the left as behind her the Huntress lunged. Hitting the ground rolling, Meg came back up already close to full speed, but behind her the Huntress stayed on her, sprinting way too fast, and gaining.

Kate started towards Meg, but Feng caught her sleeve.

“You can’t,” she hissed as the Huntress closed the distance between herself and Meg, “You’ll just get hit too. If you want to help, we gotta go back in and find the hex.”

It was one of the worst ones, and they all hated it with a passion. Fixing generators while people ran around with giant knives trying to stab you to death was hard enough without the generators purposefully doing everything in their power to be hard to fix, or with other hexes cursing you so even a scratch would send you down like you’d been carved open by a chainsaw. This specific hex only took effect at the end of trial, if they’d managed to actually do all the gens. But it was the worst. Feng had seen so many god damn trials where she’d done everything right, and at least most of them had still been alive, only for the killer to mow through the remaining survivors at an exit because of this stupid fucking hex. You wouldn’t even know it was on you until it was too late, most of the time, but if you got hit—even a scratch—while it was up, you’d feel like you’d taken a bullet to the spine and go down, hard. Plus, it made the killer using it really _fucking_ fast, and there was no time limit on it, no nothing—either you found the hex totem and destroyed it, got out because the killer was somewhere else or _really_ fucked up and somehow missed you, pulled off some _masterful_ maneuvering and got a good bit lucky, or you just fucking died because there wasn’t a lot of shit you could do about it. And the last one was mostly the one that happened.

“I’m goin’,” said Kate almost too fast to be understood, “If ah find it ‘n she goes down, we can get her back, n’ if she don’t get caught y’all just run out with her—there’s the other exit or the hatch for me.”

She tore off back into the trial ground, breaking Feng’s hold on her sleeve.

“Shit, I’ll go too,” said Quentin, taking off after her.

 _The fuck am I supposed to do?_ thought Feng. She had about six seconds before Meg and the Huntress got to the exit she was in, and if she was going to run off too, it had to be now, before she was in melee range. _You dumbasses,_ thought Feng angrily, watching Quentin disappear, _If you run off to try and help, she’s probably just gonna to catch all of you! Meg wouldn’t want that either._

Not that it was fair to just leave Meg to die, but the killers liked to use their altruism against them—ruthlessly—and the others weren’t very good at countering that by not caring, which made them all predictable. And weaker at trials.

Feeling a little guilty at how cutthroat that would maybe have sounded out loud, Feng made her split-second decision and hid behind one of the little walls in the exit—not willing to risk death to run out and help, but not wanting to totally abandon Meg either.

Meg made it all the way to the entryway before the Huntress caught her. It wasn’t even a clean hit—just a little slice at the back of her left shoulder, but she went down with a scream and her body shuddered on the ground as the hex multiplied the pain, electrifying her body with it.

 _Shit, shit, fuck,_ thought Feng, back pressed to the wall, _Please don’t look here, please don’t look._ She could probably make the five feet to the exit, but she didn’t want to have to.

She got lucky, though. Not seeing any of the others, and not wanting to lose the prey that had been mocking her for the past fifteen minutes, the Huntress picked Meg up, still humming to herself, and walked towards one of the hooks, away from Feng.

_Shit._

She’d come back and check the exit, probably—unless she was so pissed at Meg that she just wanted to stand and watch her bleed out.

As Meg went up on a hook nearby, Feng heard the sound of a crack in the distance, and a shockwave of wind shot through her body as the hex was broken.

 _Oh my god,_ thought Feng, genuinely astounded, _They did it. They actually found it._

No longer under the immediate threat of death at a scratch, Feng crept towards the doorway, watching for any sign of the Huntress. _I could just leave. There’s two of them—I’m sure they can get her._

But still, Meg had been doing half the work, keeping the Huntress busy. It was only fair to go back for her, even if they didn’t _need_ her help—just in case.

Feng slipped towards the hook slowly, staying in bushes and by rocks, easing her way until she could see Meg clearly, up on a hill.

 _Oof,_ thought Feng. It was a little bit of a sprint back to the door. Doable, but one of them was going to probably have to try and take a hit for her if they wanted to pull this off.

The Huntress was close, watching from the hook beside her—maybe not because she was mad and wanted to ensure the kill, or even to guard, though. She was using the hill’s height, looking off into the rest of the forest, arm up with a hatchet. _She’s hunting,_ thought Feng, _knows the rest of the pack will come back for the one we lost. Damn it, they always use this against us. If we weren’t always altruistic, they’d have to change their strategies, and then we’d actually get to live more of the time. But everyone would feel like assholes, so no one’s ever going to do it._

Off to her right, she caught sight of Quentin, hiding behind a tree. He made eye contact and gestured towards the Huntress.

 _One of us should run decoy,_ thought Feng, _Yeah, I can do that. It’ll be easy not to get caught._ She gave Quentin a nod and pointed to him, then to Meg, then to herself and the Huntress and made a motion with two of her fingers like someone walking really fast. He nodded back. _Good, he got it in one._

Feng stood up and took off towards the hill in plain sight. The Huntress saw her, almost immediately, and swung around, hatchet up. Feng swerved left and took off for a tree, barely making it behind in time, hearing the hatchet embed itself into the bark of the tree behind her. She kept running past the tree, eyes on a set of low walls up ahead, but the second she was past the tree a hatchet caught her in the shoulder and sent her stumbling forward.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck! That’s too soon—I didn’t give him enough time!_ For all her enjoyment this trial and shit-talking, the Huntress was fucking good at predicting their movements in chases. Feng slid to cover behind a rock and pulled a roll of gauze out of her pocked and started to hastily try to wrap the cut to stop some of the bleeding, looking over her shoulder to see if the diversion had worked anyway. But, it hadn’t. Meg was still up there, struggling against the Entity now, and the Huntress hadn’t left the hill. _Shit, that camping bitch,_ thought Feng angrily, a piece of wrap in her mouth as she tried to tug it tight.

In front of the hill, Kate made a run, and the Huntress shot a hatchet her way just as fast, just slicing her in the leg as she tried to make it behind a large rock.

 _She can’t have that many more hatchets on her,_ thought Feng desperately. It wasn’t going to matter, though, unless someone did something really fast, they were going to be out of time. Meg wasn’t going to be able to fight that thing off much longer.

Behind the Huntress, crouched so low Feng hadn’t even seen him, Quentin suddenly dashed the last ten feet to Meg and snatched her off the hook with almost unbelievable speed, shoving her down the hill ahead of him, trying to shield her with his body.

The Huntress spun at the sound and swiped at Quentin, catching him in the back and knocking him forward into Meg, sending the both of them stumbling down the hill. Somehow neither of them lost their balance completely, though, and they took off neck-and-neck for the open door.

 _Yes!_ thought Feng, watching them go.

Past her, Feng saw Kate make a break for the exit as well, having probably already sutured her leg or something, since she was fortunate enough to have brought a medkit with her and didn’t look like she was still leaking blood.

 _That’s fine,_ thought Feng, watching her go, _I can run past and get pinged once on my way out after I fix my shoulder, or I can just go find the hatch or the other exit._

From her position behind her rock, Feng could just barely see the open exit if she leaned out—it should have been easier, since she was only like fifteen, twenty feet off, but the mist was so thick it was like visibility from thirty yards. Still, she did her best, trying to catch the end of it all. Kate made it to the doorway just a few seconds behind the other two, since Meg and Quentin had had to circle a little, and Kate had been running a straight-shot, and as Kate came barreling around a corner to join them she rammed her shoulder into the Huntress, knocking her aim off on a hatchet throw meant for Meg, and taking a slice from the ax in retribution. Then they were all three through, then, out into the exit’s entryway. Knowing she wasn’t going to sprint it to her prey in time, the Huntress raised a hatchet and aimed, and seeing it coming, Quentin moved and took the hit for Meg, knocking her past the burrier and slamming into the ground from the force of the throw, a hatchet embedded in his chest. Kate tried to turn back to help him, but a swing from the Huntress’ ax across her gut sent her past the burrier too, and both girls vanished.

 _She burned a mori, too,_ thought Feng, heart sinking a little. Tying off her bandage, she added, almost absently, _I better move_. _She saw me hide here, and she’ll come for me next._

Considering which of her three escapes to follow, Feng shot Quentin a last sympathetic look as the Huntress stood over him. _Sorry,_ she thought, slipping off a little to the left of the exit and towards it, since there were plenty of places to hide, and just going for the open door was probably her safest bet. The Huntress would choose to leave it to go look for her soon, anyway.

Ahead of her, Quentin tried to crawl for the exit, but the Huntress picked him up and slung him over a shoulder, bringing him back into her forest. Feng froze up as she came her way, and when she stopped walking it was so close to where Feng was hiding behind a bush that for a second she thought she’d been spotted. The Huntress passed her, though, walking another five feet and leaving her a straight-shot to the door, dropping Quentin about fifteen feet from the exit, and way closer to Feng than was comfortable. Feng held her breath, peeking through the bush at them.

Quentin hit the ground with a groan of pain, and Feng saw him weakly trying to move, even though he had to know it was futile. Huntress moris were one of the most painful. She went for the head with her ax, but the first shot almost never killed you. Neither did her ripping it back out of your skull. Usually, they lived through at least a couple of the swings cracking open their ribs too, before it actually ended for them.

Stopping Quentin easily, the Huntress bent down over him and flipped him onto his back, and Feng was close enough to see him flinch, see how fast he was breathing in fear and anticipation as she closed her fingers around the hilt of the hatchet that was still embedded in the right side of his chest. _Oh, fuck._ There was a flick of her wrist then, and Quentin cried out as she wrenched the hatchet free. Feng flinched at the _shlick_ it made as it came out.

The Huntress paused then, white mask speckled with blood, and bent closer over him, close to his face, and he tried to lean as far away from her as he could, breathing quick and shallow, pinned there, and for a second Feng thought she was looking at him—something the Huntress had never really done carefully to any of them before, but then she realized the eyeline was wrong for that. _What is…?_ Tilting her head, the Huntress looked down towards his neck, and Feng saw his chest rise and fall quicker with fear, expecting the worst, and then suddenly, in one swift motion, the Huntress curled her fingers around his necklace and ripped it free.

“No!” she heard Quentin cry out, reaching after her with a shaky hand, trying to grab it back. “No, please! Please, I need that!”

Feng stared at him in shock through the leaves of her hiding place. He sounded broken, and desperate. She’d seen a lot of things in her time here, but never once had she heard Quentin beg for his life—beg a killer for anything. But he was begging now. It felt wrong, and Feng wished she wasn’t there to hear it—he had to think she was gone; she wasn’t supposed to see this.

Feng hadn’t even realized the necklace was very important to him. He always wore it, sure, but all of them always wore whatever they’d had on when they got taken. _It’s…It’s a cross and a medallion of some kind, right?_ But no—no it was just the cross now. They had just started to keep the medallion at camp, to use with keys, in case the Wraith showed up while Quentin was in a trial. So now he just had the one.

Weak from wounds and blood loss, Quentin still had his hand up, reaching towards her, even though his whole arm was was trembling from the effort. The Huntress didn’t give the necklace back, though, or make any motion to show she’d even heard him. She brought the little chain and cross to her face and tilted her head, looking at them for a second as the shiny metal caught some nearby firelight, then she put it in a pouch on one of the belts she wore at her hip and turned her attention back to her prey.

“Please,” Quentin begged, voice quieter and weaker than before, but just as desperate, already sounding crushed by the answer he knew he was going to get no matter what he did, but still trying for some reason, “Please, that’s all I have.”

 _Won’t he get it back?_ Usually any damage done to their clothes was repaired after they died here. But then—the Huntress hadn’t broken it. She’d just taken it—kept it. The Wraith had kept some of Claudette’s stuff, hadn’t he? Could they do that? _Fuck, I don’t know,_ thought Feng, looking towards the open doorway and safety. She started to inch towards it, then looked back at Quentin.

 _You can’t save him; don’t be stupid,_ she told herself, but the stupid part of her brain wasn’t listening today. _Of course not, but you should try—right? Look how upset he is. Nea would try, I bet. Because she’s a nice friend. Claudette would try. Dwight would try. Quentin would try, if it was you. Do you really think you aren’t always the one who escapes through the hatch for a reason?_

She bit her lip and looked back at him. The Huntress was just finishing clipping the little hatchet to her belt, watching him. He was still reaching up towards her, and his arm was in her way, so she stepped on the arm, pinning it down.

“Please,” said Quentin again, sounding for the first time Feng had ever heard like he might cry, “Please, give it back. I don’t care if you kill me, but please. Please, I need it.”

Uncaring, the Huntress raised her arm to bury her ax in his forehead.

_Fuck._

“Привет!” Feng practically screamed, mind digging for all the Russian hours and hours of gaming and art and the occasional fan meetup had taught her and dashing out of her hiding space towards them.

The Huntress stopped mid-swing and she and Quentin both turned to look, equally shocked.

“Feng?” she heard Quentin say, astonished.

The Huntress raised her ax at Feng as she got closer, but she kept coming, sliding to a stop right behind Quentin, hands up and out like she was trying to deter a charging bear.

“Ahhh,” Feng said as a placeholder, panicking for a second, “Спасибо, Без труда не вытащишь и рыбку из пруда!”

“What?” asked Quentin beneath her, looking up in a panic, “What are you doing—what are you saying?”

 _Shit, I don’t know—I think it was something about a fish,_ thought Feng, “Век живи, век учись!”

The Huntress blinked at her, arm still up but too distracted to swing.

 _Ahhhhh fuck fuck fuck. What are you thinking?! Shit, uh—_ “Матушка Россия, За Родину! Вместе мы сила!” Feng shouted, heart beating faster than it had in weeks.

At that one, the Huntress’s arm faltered and she reacted, sort of jerking upright, immediately more alert.

“What did you say?” asked Quentin again.

“Вместе мы сила?” Feng tried again, but the Huntress didn’t have much of a reaction this time. “Матушка Россия, За Родину,” she hurried, afraid to lose steam. Again, the Huntress looked surprised, and leaned forward, cocking her head to look Feng up and down, arm lowering a little.

“She liked that one—Quentin, say it,” said Feng, mouth and brain still not at the same speed again yet, and both definitely not at law-abiding speeds.

“Say what?” asked Quentin, absolutely lost, looking from her to the Huntress.

“Матушка Россия. За Родину,” Feng repeated, nudging him with her foot to try and prompt him.

“Matushka Rossiya, Za Rodgino,” he tried quickly, close to right.

“Матушка Россия. За Родину,” Feng prompted again, trying to get him to say it better.

The Huntress stared at them like she was having an out of body experience.

“Matushka Rossiya, Za Rodinu,” he said, probably close enough to right.

“Yeah, that’s it, keep saying it,” said Feng, terror washing over her as the Huntress watched them. They started to say it together, about fifteen times quickly, and the Huntress slowly lowered the arm all the way, still looking absolutely mystified.

“What are we saying?” asked Quentin between reps. “Матушка Россия.”

“Uh, ‘Mother Russia,’ and ‘For the Motherland,’” said Feng nervously, still only two feet from the huge woman with the ax and no idea when this was going to stop being amusing enough for her not to kill them. _I never expected to get this far, what the fuck do I do now?_ “За Родину.”

“What? Why are we saying that? Why is it working?” asked Quentin, sounding even more astounded by the second question than the first.

“Look, all the Russian I know basically comes from _Overwatch_ ,” Feng hissed back, “You get what you get. How should I know?”

After a second of consideration, the Huntress clipped her ax to her belt. Feng and Quentin paused their repetitions and exchanged a quick, hopeful look. That kind of shit had _never_ happened before. Stepping over Quentin and leaning forward, the huge woman reached out and grabbed Feng’s arms, and Feng let out a sound between a yelp and squeak in spite of herself as the fists closed around her arms like vices, pinning her in place while the Huntress looked her up and down.

“Feng?” ask Quentin, worried and not able to really see what was going on behind him.

“It’s okay, I think,” answered Feng through her teeth, trying not to move as the Huntress let go of one of her arms and tugged on some of her hair thoughtfully.

The huge woman took her chin and tilted her face side to side, and then, seeming satisfied, let go of her and moved back, stooping over Quentin.

“It’s okay,” said Feng again, trying to reassure him, feeling a bit faint and her own heart thudding uncontrollably, “I think she just wants to get a look at you.”

The Huntress placed a hand on his chest and looked down at the damage she’d caused, and then up at his face when Quentin sucked in a sharp breath as the pressure on his chest hurt him. Drawing her hand back sticky, the Huntress wiped it on her skirt and then moved her hands up to Quentin’s face, taking it and tilting it from side to side like she had Feng’s, pulling off his ski cap and running a hand through his hair as he tried hard not to flinch at the touch.

After a moment of consideration, in one snap movement, she flicked the ax back off her belt and swung it two-handed, high above her head over Quentin. Feng and Quentin screamed.

“AH—No! Матушка Россия, За Родину! Wait, wait, wait!” screamed Feng, moving closer, half-committing to a motion to shield him, arms out.

The Huntress paused, hands over her head, but didn’t lower the ax. Feng’s mind raced a million miles an hour, trying to figure out what was happening, and what had gone wrong, and what could fix it. _Fuck. She definitely speaks Russian but she only liked the super patriotic stuff. She stole his necklace, she doesn’t want to kill me, but she still wants to kill him—is it because he’s already broken? Maybe she thinks he’ll die anyway?_

“Quentin, try to look less wounded, it might be a survival of the fittest thing,” she hissed.

Quentin had a look on his face like _Fucking how do I look less wounded?_ but he didn’t say it. He just tried hard to prop himself up on his elbows, still on his back. He was able to, although it looked painful, and his t-shirt was stained all over the front with blood and mud.

The Huntress gave Feng and Quentin another glance, then took one of her hands off the ax and used it to shove Feng out of the way, which she sure did, because Feng hadn’t seen it coming at all and stumbled backwards, falling on her butt in the grass, as the Huntress raised her arms over Quentin again.

As she prepared to strike him down, Quentin didn’t say anything, or try to shield himself or crawl away. He just put a hand over his chest wound, trying to staunch the blood, and looked up at the Huntress, eyes big and pleading.

She paused, ax still raised, considering him again, then thoughtfully she lowered the weapon and clipped it back on her belt and took his face in both her hands, leaning in so close the white nose of her wood mask almost touched his, studying him again. Feng watched in a mixture of fascination and horror as he held still, breathing weakly and looking back.

 _Shit, I want to help, but…_ Something clicked in Feng’s mind. _The bunny mask. Jewelry. That gauzy thing she wears like hair on the mask. Me._ “Quentin,” she hissed, “That’s working. Try to look cuter. I think she might like cute things.”

“Uh,” he whispered, not turning his head from the intense scrutiny he was getting, “How?”

“Big eyes, think like a hurt a dog—that’s maximum cute. _Maximum cute_ is hurt dog, Quentin! Sad and harmless—Or you could try smiling at her, go for the other side of cute, you know—endearing,” Feng shot off, rapid-fire, “Fuck it, you know what the word means, Quentin—just try to look cute!”

 To his credit, he did, somehow giving the Huntress a sort of hopeful look while looking terrified and pitiful at the same time. And honestly, it wasn’t bad. Feng was a pretty good judge of cute, and it was at least a solid 7.5 on a sliding scale of 1-10.

“I feel like an idiot,” said Quentin through his teeth, still inches from the Huntress’s face.

“You’re alive right now, aren’t you,” Feng hissed back, slowly standing up behind him, “Keep going.”

Reaching a decision, the Huntress let go of Quentin’s face and lay him back on the ground, then stood up, walking the two steps over to Feng.

“Uh, hi— Привет,” Feng said, trying herself to look as cute as possible. Which, admittedly, she was pretty good at.

The Huntress grabbed her waist with both arms and hefted her above her head easily, slinging her over one of her shoulders, and Feng shrieked on instinct.

 _Shit, shit! Is she going to kill me on a hook and I should struggle? Or is that going to just fuck up the small amount of communication we have going. God damn it, I fucking hate this! How did Claudette and Dwight do this! It’s awful!_ thought Feng frantically, fighting the urge to beat at the Huntress’ neck with her fists. _What should I even? Oh—wait, I could try to—_

Feng shifted on her back as the huge woman walked back over to where Quentin still lay on the ground, stooped, and easily lifted him up with one hand and slung him over her other shoulder. As soon as she had them both, the Huntress turned and walked towards the house.

“Is this good, or bad?” asked Quentin weakly, hanging limply over a shoulder.

“I don’t know—I think good?” said Feng, turning so she could see where they were going, and then remembering that the basement was in the shack and not the house this trial. _Not the basement. Not the basement is good._

“Do you have any idea where she’s taking us?” he asked, sounding exhausted and spent.

She shook her head.

“Well, thank you anyway,” he said after a second, smiling at her from across the Huntress’ shoulder blades, “For sticking around and coming to help me. I mean that—Really.”

There was blood from his chest wound dripping down his neck and onto his face and he looked half-dead, but in spite of that he looked genuinely happy for a moment, and his expression made Feng feel warm inside and she smiled back automatically, then tried to suppress it. It was so unusual to get praise for doing things that were stupid, or ineffective, or just…unimportant, overall—not useful. She didn’t want to start depending on that to feel good.

The Huntress walked into the cabin and stooped to set Quentin in the ground, then picked up Feng with both hands and put her down in a tiny alcove by one of the entryways.

 _This could be good, this could be bad—stay sharp,_ Feng told herself, spending the rest of her brain power on channeling cute towards the Huntress.

Keeping a grip on her arm with one hand, the Huntress took a rope that was connected to a large black iron ring in the wall behind her and brought it over to Feng, quickly and deftly securing the thick rope around her neck.

_Oh no, it’s bad._

The Huntress pushed her then, so she was sitting down, and turned and walked away, over to a corner of the room. Feng heard the sound of an ax hitting something. With the Huntress out of sight, Feng put her hands up to her throat and tried frantically to untie the knot, but it was firm.

“Are you okay?” she heard Quentin say from where he lay, bleeding out a few feet past her on the wood floor. When she looked, he was looking back with a worried expression on his face.

“Yeah, this isn’t choking me, I just can’t untie it,” she said, not really sure how to better answer that question. Because it wasn’t _great._

The Huntress crossed back over to them carrying another thick rope, and tied one end of it to the same ring Feng’s rope was tied to, then picked up Quentin and set him beside Feng, propped up against the log wall and an old wooden rocking horse type toy painted a deep red, and secured the other end around his neck.

She surveyed the two of them for a second then, head tilted, then smiled. It was an incredibly shocking sight, and it kind of terrified Feng at the same time as it made her less immediately afraid for her life. The Huntress, smiling.

Above them, the huge woman considered them for another second, head tilted, then she reached down and opened the pocket on one of her utility belts. Quentin and Feng exchanged a quick, nervous glance, but after a moment of searching, the Huntress took a little red bird carved out of wood from the pocket and knelt in front of them, handing it to Feng.

“Wow,” said Feng, terrified and trying to look as appreciative as possible, “Thanks! It’s really neat!”

The Huntress looked happy, and reached back into the pocket and took a little wood toy made out of a stick with cup shaped basin on top and a little string and ball attached to the cup, and handed it to Quentin.

“Thank you,” said Quentin, doing his sincere best to match Feng’s appreciativeness. He tried shakily to get it to do the thing where you tossed with the handle just right and the ball landed in the cup, and failed, but it still seemed to please the Huntress that he was playing with it, and she ruffled his hair and stood up, starting to hum again.

She turned away from them, then, and a few seconds later they heard the thump of her feet on the boards as she went upstairs.

Quentin and Feng traded horrified looks.

“I think I fucked up,” said Feng quickly, looking at the bird in her hands.

“Did she just decide to keep us?” asked Quentin, “As—as pets?”

“Yeah, I think so,” answered Feng, tugging on the rope around her neck. “How is she so FUCKING strong? Can you get yours?”

“I can barely lift my arms,” said Quentin, who was getting pale, “But I’ll try.” He did, tugging on the rope and then clawing at it weakly with his fingernails.

“Okay, stop—stop,” said Feng, “You look pathetic doing that. You’re mostly dead and you’ll die faster if you overexert.”

“Thanks,” said Quentin unhappily, stopping.

“Are you…gonna bleed out?” she asked, seriously considering that as a possibility for the first time, and terrified at the thought of being tied up here as a pet alone.

“I think so,” said Quentin, sucking in a sharp breath as he brought his ski cap up to his chest wound and tried to keep pressure on it with the cloth.

They sat there in silence for a few seconds, Quentin trying to slow down bleeding out, and Feng still tugging at her rope.

“Well,” said Feng after a second, giving up on the knot, “We figured out she does speak Russian.”

Quentin laughed, and it turned into pained coughs. “Ow,” he said, wiping at a little fleck of blood that had come out of his mouth when he coughed. “Feng,” he added after a second, looking more worried, “If I bleed out and she tries to keep you here, what happens?”

“What happens?” asked Feng.

“We sort of know how to find the killers’ home areas, but this is a trial. Trials disappear and reset and change once they end, right? And we have no idea how to get to them. But they don’t end until,”

“Everyone is out, or dead,” said Feng, completing the horrifying thought with him in real-time.

His look conveyed the rest of what that meant. She could get stuck here—maybe forever, or at least however many days it took her to die of starvation. Except, they couldn’t die of starvation, could they? Not outside trials, so probably not in them. _Fuck, I could get stuck here with her forever. Like forever and ever. Oh shit._

She could always try to kill herself, but…By what—slamming her head against the wall until that did her in? The idea was kind of horrifying.

“You’re sure you can’t get yours?” asked Quentin, voice starting to sound a little scratchy, and weaker than before.

Feng tried again, with everything she had, to rip the thing free. It wouldn’t budge. All she managed to do was scratch up her fingers on the rough rope. Feng shrugged, angrily.

They sat in silence for a second, and Quentin took out his little cup and ball game and turned it in the dim candle light. Feng looked at her little red bird, thinking over what had just happened. Then there were footsteps again, and the Huntress reappeared, holding a blanket. They froze and looked up at her, petrified for a second, but all she did was stoop in front of them and drape it over the two of them like a mother tucking a child in, pat them both on the head, and disappear again, still humming.

Quentin looked at Feng. She looked back. Suddenly his face started to twitch like he was having a hard time not laughing, and it spread to her, and she was having to fight it back too.

“Well,” said Quentin, with barely contained laughter, holding up his little cup toy like a goblet, ready to toast, “I didn’t think this is how I would go out, but honestly, asleep in bed is the dream, right?”

Feng tried and failed to choke down a laugh, and he grinned at her.

“This is fucking surreal,” she said, leaning her head against the cabin wall. “Wow, I really fucked up, huh? This is why people shouldn’t be stupid nice—you try to be nice when it’s a bad idea, and you end up stuck in a cabin, tied to a wall forever. Nothing but a blanket and toys to show for it.”

“I mean, it didn’t go great,” admitted Quentin, still having a hard time not laughing, “But, uh, it’s not so bad—sort of. Thank you for trying, anyway.”

He looked like he meant it, too. And in spite of herself, she wasn’t really sorry she’d done it.

“Still,” continued Quentin, “I can’t die and leave you here, so we gotta find a way to get you free before I bleed out. Let’s see if we can find a…I don’t know, like a sharp board or something…” He dug around under the blanket and came back with a human arm bone. “Okay, not—not super promising,” he said, putting the bone down and continuing to look feebly.

Feng giggled and joined him, pulling out a book. “Less horrible, not useful,” she said, dropping it.

“Oh, hey—” said Quentin, looking excited. He held up a trembling, pale hand, clutching a ceramic plate. “Try breaking it,” he said, voice shaky, “T-to cut with.”

“Okay,” said Feng, worried by how bad he sounded. She took the plate from him and cracked it against the floor, splintering it, and picked up one of the jagged pieces and started to saw at her rope.

“Wait,” said Quentin, putting a hand on hers, stopping her, “If she comes back she’ll see you’ve cut it. Don’t do it at the knot—do it at the slack, s-so you can hide it under the blanket if she walks by.”

She nodded, moving to cut it where he’d suggested.

“Don’t you want a piece?” asked Feng after a second, turning and offering him a shard.

Quentin weakly shook his head. “Nah, I’m about as good as dead. I won’t last more than an hour, and that’s really pushing it. I’m guessing twenty minutes. I can’t walk, and she’ll probably chase you as soon as she sees you start to run. If you’re trying to help me, we might both get caught. Plus, maybe if I stay and bleed out, she’ll just think we both died and not be super pissed at us next trial.”

It was smart. It made sense. “You’re sure?” asked Feng, about a third of the way through the rope. Even with a sharp edge, the thing was fucking thick. “I could…I could finish you off, just in case.” She really didn’t want to do that, but it was smart. To be safe.

He shook his head. “I’m pretty close to dead. I don’t think she could save me if she tried, and I don’t think she’s even noticed. Plus, I know we’ve…some of us have done that before, but I don’t want to do it any more than we have to—even mercy killing. Probably not great for us in here.”

“Okay,” said Feng, feeling guilty about how happy she was at the prospect of not having to stab or strangle him to death. He was right though. No way he’d live very long, even if she left him in the trial. Looking at him, she was amazed he was still as lucid as he was.

“What do you think happened?” asked Quentin after a second, watching her slowly saw through the rope. “Why did she decide to keep us? You said you think she just likes…cute things? And what…patriotic Russian?”

“I have no idea,” answered Feng, glancing around the cabin, “But that kind of makes sense—right? At least the cute stuff part. She wears that bunny mask, and seems to like shiny stuff? You—oh man, you do think we’re here as pets, right?” she asked, suddenly a little horrified, “Not to be slowly chopped up and cannibalized, right?”

“I uh—yeah,” answered Quentin, “With the blanket and the—the toys. It seems like it, right? I don’t think you’d give a,” he held up the little cup and ball toy, “a this thing to someone you were going to eat, right?”

“Will she keep trying to catch us and tie us up every trial now, do you think?” asked Feng, slicing through the second third of the rope and getting close to freeing herself, “Or be super mad?”

“I don’t know,” answered Quentin, who was extremely pale now, and fighting to keep his eyes open. “I hope she doesn’t hate us for this. I don’t want another killer who hates me and chases me all the time.”

With one solid tug, Feng broke through the rope and was free. She lit up with relief, turning to show Quentin it was done. He smiled weakly at her.

“Go on,” he said, “The door’s open, and it sounds like she’s still upstairs. You should make it just fine.”

“You’re sure?” she asked one last time, her resolve faltering a little, looking at him so weak and helpless, tied to the wall, “You’re gonna be okay?”

He nodded. Feng took his bloody hand and squeezed it, then crept to her feet, turned and slipped out the side entrance. It was easy going, moving from hiding place to hiding place. She’d basically mastered Nea’s technique at this point, crouching around places fast. The Huntress didn’t see her, didn’t chase, and she made it clean to the exit without having to even break a sweat. All in one piece, no damage—just a rope tied around her neck, dangling to about her waist to show for it.

“Good luck, Quentin,” whispered Feng, then she turned and slipped through the exit.

 

* * *

 

 

Feng burned back into existence by the campfire. She heard Nea shout her name before she’d even registered who was there, and her girlfriend had her shoulders the next second.

“Feng, are you okay?” she heard her panicked voice asking, “What the fuck is this?”

Feng looked down and saw that the rope was still there, and Nea was holding the slack, staring at it. _Oh shit, bet it looks like I hung myself,_ though Feng.

“I’m good—I’m good,” she replied hurriedly, trying to calm Nea down. Most of the others were gathered around too, looking confused and alarmed. “It’s kind of a long story, but Quentin and I accidently convinced the Huntress to keep us as pets, I think, and I had to escape.”

“I’m sorry, you did fucking _what?_ ” asked Meg, blinking in surprise.

“Is Quentin okay?” asked Kate worriedly.

“Ish…?” offered Feng hesitantly, “He’s bleeding out. He’ll be here soon. Look, let me start at the start.” There were about seven people almost dying to ask her questions, but they backed off and let her talk. As she did—doing her best to give an accurate recounting of what had gone down, Jake moved through the group up to her and deftly sliced through the rope with a handsaw, not even nicking her.

 

* * *

 

 

Quentin thought he died about an hour before he did.

Not long after Feng split, he passed out from the blood loss, and he expected to wake back up at the campfire. But he didn’t.

It had been years since Quentin Smith had slept. Actually, really slept. What was going on right now wasn’t even true sleep—just unconsciousness—but it was the closest he’d been, really, for a long time. It wasn’t the unconsciousness of being knocked on the head, or the kind that came with death. It was lucid. The kind of unconsciousness that came with drugs, or fever, or enough weakness from blood loss to force sleep. The kind of unconscious that still let you dream.

And Quentin was home.

It didn’t feel wrong to him. He was outside, standing in the street, looking up at the door. Through the window into the dining room, he could see his dad, reading the paper, and Quentin choked on the flood of emotions that overwhelmed him at the sight.

It had been so long since Quentin had dreamt that he’d forgotten how it felt—how convincing it could be, and for just a moment, he really thought he was home.

Then the five second-delay hit him, and realized it had to be a dream—he had to be dreaming. _Dreaming._

“Oh shit,” he whispered to himself, heart speeding up in his chest, “Wake up, wake up, wake up.” His hand went for the cross he wore, praying for some kind of comfort, but it was gone. Even in the dream, it was gone, and his hand found nothing.

 _It’s not like before,_ Quentin told himself, backing up against the car, eyes darting around everything he could see, then back to his dad, periodically checking out of some intense fear that he might die. It shouldn’t have mattered—it was a dream, it was a dream dad, not his real one, but it didn’t feel fake. It felt real, and he was terrified for the man in the window. _This is the Entity’s realm, right? He doesn’t get into anyone’s dreams here—everyone but you sleeps all the time. You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay. Even if he shows up, it’s probably just a normal nightmare. You, having a nightmare about him being in a nightmare. Not real. He can’t do what he could do before._

There was the sound of metal on metal behind him and Quentin jumped forward and spun around, arms up like he could fist-fight his way out of this. There were four long scars scored into the side of the car, right where he’d been.

 _Fuck,_ though Quentin, spinning around, trying to see him. Nothing, nothing was there, but he knew it—he knew Krueger was there somewhere. He looked at the window again. His dad was still there, reading the paper, and Quentin waited, heart thudding, for something to kill him.

He was suddenly jerked backwards, metal gauntleted fingers over his mouth, as he tried to scream, and slammed up against the car, denting it and knocking the breath out of him.

 _Fuck._ He struggled to pull himself to his feet, blurred vision making it hard to focus on anything. Krueger had been there—he’d just been there! But he was gone again, vanished.

“You fucking coward!” shouted Quentin, using the side of the car to steady himself, “If you want to come out of the shadows and kill me, come on out, but quit playing games!”

“Well, well, Quentin.”

The voice was right behind him, and he spun around again, looking, but there was no one. Just…Quentin leaned forward, squinting. There—in the reflection of the car window. He turned quickly, expecting to see the man behind him, but he wasn’t. He was only in the reflection.

Krueger made a disappointed sound, clicking his tongue. “You finally fell asleep. You really shouldn’t do that.”

 _It’s not real, it’s not real—it’s a nightmare about a nightmare,_ Quentin told himself frantically, backing away from the reflection.

There was a sudden, sharp stinging sensation in his back, and Quentin cried out and fell forward, catching himself on the trunk of the car. When he looked this time, there Krueger was. Standing over him, wicked grin on his face, fresh blood on the gauntlet. Quentin reached for the wound and drew his hand back slick with blood.

“Hey,” said Krueger, waving the gauntleted hand, “Remember me?”

Quentin jerked awake with a gasp, breathing hard.

 _Fuck, fuck—what the fuck!_ He tried to calm himself down, looking around. _It’s okay—it’s okay. You’re still in the Red Forest. You’re still... Oh, fuck, I’m still in the Red Forest?_

“Damn it, the one time I actually want to die, it has to take forever,” groaned Quentin quietly, leaning against the wall, exhausted. The motion hurt, and he cried out in surprise.

_No._

Slowly, afraid to know the answer, Quentin reached down and behind himself, to his back. The hand came back wet with blood. _You—you got hit by the Huntress, remember?_ he told himself. He reached again, feeling more carefully this time. Trying to find the cut. There wasn’t one, though. There were five.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, no,” he whispered, closing his eyes and leaning forward putting his head in his hands. “No, I can’t do this, I can’t do this.”

There was the sound of pounding footsteps, and Quentin looked up to see the Huntress rush in from the outside, ax raised. _Shit, she heard me._

She hurried through the main room and over to the little alcove, pausing in front of Quentin and double-taking.

_And she didn’t know Feng was gone until just now. Awesome._

Moving fast, she knelt and found the cut rope. Looking at the frayed end, she made an angry sound in her throat, a little like the kind of noise he’d heard her make before, if you dropped a pallet on her head, and she turned on him.

“It’s not my fault,” he lied weakly, knowing she probably couldn’t understand him anyway.

She looked angry, and for a second Quentin thought she was going to bury her ax in his chest in retribution for the prison break, but she caught sight of the blood all over his hand and stopped, expression changing and quickly clipping her ax back on her belt.

The Huntress pulled back the blanket and sat down, moving Quentin’s arms out of the way so she could get a good look at him. She took in the blood all over his shirt and pooling around him on the ground, and looked back up at his pale face. Much more gently, she reached over and pulled up his shirt, which he was too weak to really have any say about.

It hurt. Some of the older blood had dried, sticking the cloth to the wound in his chest, and when she pulled back his shirt it tore at them, and he let out a muffled cry of pain. The Huntress looked up at him when he cried out, face almost concerned, and then looked back at the wound.

Gingerly, she reached out and touched the cut, running her fingers along it. Even with a light touch, it hurt like hell, but Quentin sucked in a breath and fought down the urge to cry out this time. Slowly, the Huntress let the shirt back down over his stomach and gave him a worried look. She stood up quickly then, and disappeared into another room.

 _That could have been a lot worse,_ thought Quentin weakly, watching her go. _So far, I have been axed to death 0 times today. 0’s a lot better than 1, or 4, or anything that isn’t 0 times. So…That’s not bad at all. Right? I…Damn it…I think I’m starting to not be able to make sense. Or is that good, because it means I’m dying?_

She was back then, and knelt beside him, holding out a chunk of what looked like at least partially cooked meat. Quentin really didn’t want to eat it, though—partially because he was pretty sure he’d throw it up, and partially because he was a little afraid the meat was human meat.

The Huntress tried to give it to him, and when he didn’t go to take it, to force it into his mouth, but Quentin really, really didn’t want to unknowingly or knowingly commit cannibalism, so he fought back with everything he had left to keep his mouth shut. After a couple seconds of struggling with him and trying to force his mouth open, she noticed fresh blood seeping up through his shirt and stopped. Setting the meat down, she lifted up his shirt again, and took in the sight, then looked back at him, very sadly.

After a moment of consideration, the Huntress moved from her crouch and sat beside him cross-legged, then gently pulled him into her lap and held him there, starting to hum her lullaby again.

As used as he was to being beaten to death by her and everything else here, combined with being mostly dead and close to completely out of it, woozy from blood loss, being grabbed and moved around scared him for a second, and it hurt, and he couldn’t understand it. It took Quentin until she started stroking his head to realize that she knew he was going to die, and she was trying to make it easier on him.

 _That’s…_ thought Quentin weakly, looking up at her through hazy vision, _That’s so strange. But I guess it’s…kind of nice._

It was. In an odd way. Even if she was something that had hurt him many times before, he was somewhere warmer than most of this awful place, and brighter, behind the safety of log walls. She held him in her lap with one arm, the other hand running through his hair, looking down at him sorrowfully, but she kept on humming, and for the first time ever that song sounded like something that might have once been comforting, not just a warning of danger.

Through it all, Quentin fought to stay awake, to keep his eyes open—even long after he lost enough lucidity to remember why, to remember what the fear of dreaming really meant, but after about seven minutes of being comforted and sung a lullaby by someone who had hunted him, tied by his neck to a wall in the Red Forest, Quentin finally died.

 

* * *

 

 

Quentin was gone for longer than they expected.

Feng got through her whole story and fielded questions for another half hour, until they’d about discussed what had happened to death, and he was still missing. People started to get antsy, and wonder if maybe they were going to have to do something, but Feng told them that by his own estimation he might live for an hour after she left, so they waited. An hour came and went, though, and he was still gone. It took another twelve minutes of steadily tenser and tenser waiting, and traded worried looks, and then suddenly he was back, burning into existence in the middle of them.

“Quentin!” exclaimed Meg, running over and giving him a hug, “You’re okay! You were gone forever.”

“Yeah, sorry, I passed out and woke up again before actually bleeding out,” he replied, almost embarrassed, “Feng probably already told you everything?”

“Aye,” replied David, “You’re good though, yeah? Not hurt?”

“No, no, not really,” he replied, faltering a little. “I’m okay. Plus, we may be able to make some headway with the Huntress. So that’s big news.”

“What happened to your shirt?” asked Laurie.

“What?” said Quentin, looking genuinely surprised. He tried to turn and see, and when he couldn’t get a decent look, he felt blindly, hands instinctively going to his lower back, just above the hips, where his shirt was sliced up a little. His expression changed to something Feng couldn’t quite place, but she had a bad feeling about it, and he drew his hand back quickly to his jeans pocket, and shrugged, expression changing back to neutral almost as quick. “It’s nothing,” he said, “Old fabric. Probably caught on one of the logs or something. I’ll just stitch it up later. It’s nothing that can’t be…replaced.”

She’s been sure he was going to say ‘fixed,’ but his expression had changed again for a second and he glanced down at his chest, looking almost sad for a second before turning back to the rest of the group and forced a smile.

 _Oh, right,_ thought Feng, watching him. So much had happened that she’d almost forgotten. Almost. “Hey,” she said, standing up and walking over, holding out in a closed fist. “You dropped this.” She opened her fingers to reveal Quentin’s necklace. He stared at it, then her, expression quickly shifting from shock to joy.

“You—h—when did you?” he asked, taking it and staring down at it, then up at her again.

“I got it when she picked me up,” grinned Feng, “Got quick fingers. Sorry I forgot to tell you before—the whole tied to a wall thing kind of distracted me.”

Quentin closed his fingers around the necklace and his eyes welled up and for a second Feng was afraid he was going to cry, but he didn’t. Instead, he pulled her suddenly into a hug. Feng stiffened, not expecting or used to that, then awkwardly patted his shoulder.

“Thank you so much,” he said, voice low so only she could hear, “You have no idea how much this thing means to me.”

She didn’t, but she believed him, and the same warm feeling she’d had when he’d thanked her for coming back for him built in her chest. “No problem,” she whispered back, “Be smart and wear it under your shirt so it doesn’t get stolen again. And the Huntress broke the clasp ripping it off, but I bet Jake can fix it.”

He let go of her then, still smiling. “Okay. I’ll take the advice. Thanks, Feng. You’re amazing, you know that?”

She flushed. “Yes, I do, now go get it fixed.” He grinned at her again, then turned to look for Jake. “And if anything interesting happened after I left, let us know, okay?” she called after him.

“I will,” he called back, “In a minute—it wasn’t a lot, but it might help. I just wanna get this fixed—first, if that’s—?”

“Yeah, go,” said Feng, waving him off. He nodded, shot her one last smile, and went.

“What was that about?” asked Nea, coming up from behind and leaning an arm on her.

“Nothing, he just lost something and I got it back,” shrugged Feng. “No big deal.” She’d left that part out of her story when she’d told the others.

“Aww,” teased Nea, “Well look at you. Being all kind and shit. You know, that’s kind of sexy,” she added in a low whisper.

“You think everything I do is sexy,” Feng whispered back, smiling and turning so they were nose to nose.

“It is,” agreed Nea, pausing to kiss her on the nose, “But that doesn’t mean I have to quit telling you about individual things I find attractive, does it?”

"What the fuck. Is this allowed? What the fuck. Is that allowed?” asked Meg, pointing at them.

“Stop,” said Nea, recognizing the vine reference immediately and playing along. Meg grinned at her. “She’s probably right though,” whispered Nea, turning nose to nose with Feng again, “All these poor bastards single. Don’t wanna hurt them.”

“Okay,” whispered Feng, “Do you want to go to the woods to continue this, or stay here and stop?”

“Depends,” replied Nea quietly, “How hungry are you?”

“Mmm,” said Feng thoughtfully, “Pretty hungry.”

“Okay then,” whispered back Nea, “Let’s stay and eat, and then go chill.”

“Sounds good,” said Feng, kissing her nose in return.

“Hey, if you’re sticking around, I’m doing the Lindsey Lohan _Parent Trap_ ,” said Meg, watching them split apart and head towards her and the campfire, “Not to boast, but, it’s gonna be…pretty tight.”

The girls looked at each other.

“The Lindsey Lohan _Parent Trap_?” asked Nea, turning to Feng.

“We can…sex is good later, we should stay,” whispered Feng.

“Oh yeah,” agreed Nea in undertones, “We can do sex whenever. Meg Movies are once in a lifetime.”

“Yeah, uh, we’re staying,” said Feng, “Save us seats.”

“Fuck yeah I will,” said Meg, raising a hand to high-five them as they went past.

“Is it like the one from the 60s?” asked Laurie, glancing over.

“Eeeeeh,” said Meg, teetering her hand in the air, “Yes and no. It’s a remake, but _damn,_ it remade.”

“Okay. I have no idea what that means, but, it…sounds good. I think,” said Laurie.

“The Lindsey Lohan  _Parent Trap_. Shite, been awhile,” said David, looking happy at the prospect.

“What is this?” Adam asked Ace quietly, leaning over.

Ace grinned. “You’ll see.”

“What is this?” Adam asked again, this time leaning over to Tapp.

“She recreates movies as a one-man show,” said Tapp, who’d seen her rendition of _Die Hard_ , “It’s actually not bad.”

“Okay…” said Adam, looking like that had only left him with more questions, but questions he wasn’t about to ask right now.

 _I wonder,_ thought Feng, sitting by the campfire while Nea grabbed them food. She took the little red bird out of her pocket and turned it over in the fire light. _Did we make things worse with her, or better? She never tried to talk to us, even if she understood. Why would she not do that? Why keep us, and not talk. Now that I’m thinking it over, I wonder if it really was a pet she wanted, or…_ “Oh man, we’re so fucking stupid,” she muttered under her breath.

“Huh?” asked Ace, who had just taken a seat nearby, fresh cup of coffee in hand.

“You know how I said the Huntress stopped attacking when we said some stuff in Russian—all this Mother-Russia, patriotic stuff?” asked Feng quietly.

Ace nodded.

“I’m really dumb sometimes,” continued Feng, shaking her head at herself angrily, “I don’t know how I didn’t get it before, but now I think I know why she did what she did. I think we were close, but we got it wrong. The phrases she liked were ‘Матушка Россия,’ which is just ‘Mother Russia,’ and ‘За Родину,’ which is ‘For the Motherland.’”

Listening carefully, Ace made a motion for her to go on.

“I could be wrong, but I don’t think it was exactly that she kept us because she thought we were cute, or wanted a pet,” said Feng, holding up the little toy for him to see.

As the red paint caught the firelight, Ace looked from it, to her, trying to follow the logic. Feng looked up at him and met his eyes, running through it all in her head one last time. She wasn’t sure—she couldn’t prove it, but. But it made sense, didn’t it?

Feng took a breath. “I think she thought we were calling her ‘Mom’.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feng is partially correct. While the Russian ‘Родину’ would translate to homeland/motherland, it doesn’t use the same component part in ‘motherland’ as in the word ‘mother,’ like we do in English if we said "Motherland". But, since they kept saying both phrases quickly together, probably neither Feng nor Quentin even noticed that she was mostly responding to the “Mother Russia,” and not “For the Motherland.” The Russian Feng uses is all taken from Zarya voice lines, or very, very simple phrases (like "Mother Russia") which she would have been very likely to have learned at fan meetups. Anna's just lucky she didn't throw in a gravaton surge warning, or anything truly, astronomically astounding (although to be honest, since Anna was very young when her mother died, the only words she probably recognized at all were "Hello" and "Mother").  
> It's interesting that Anna is one of the least damaged killers--having neither massive scars like the Trapper, or Lisa, or Philip, nor Entity-influenced alterations to her humanity, like Sally, or the Hillbilly's eyes, or the Spirit. She, the Clown, and the Legion are all kind of in a class of their own there with the licensed killers. Since it seems like a reasonable inference that the Entity didn't /have/ to resort to violence or great control in order to get the desired response from her, it also seems likely that it mostly used the fact that this wasn't too different from her life before. It's just hunting, with one extra layer now. It would be interesting to hear more from official cannon about how much she really knows about what is going on. She's described in cannon as being very much as she was before being in the Entity's realm, despite being one of the oldest killers (era-wise)--probably a lot less driven, and more naturally predatory, as well as to still "seek something" (presumably young girls to adopt). Maybe she doesn't really know much of the truth at all?
> 
> As far as killer mechanics go, it's also interesting to consider Freddy Krueger, since he's the only non-human killer in the lot. While he's nothing as old or powerful as the Entity itself, not by a long shot, he is a demon. That being the case, his path to developing (and abusing) Entity-realm given powers probably differs a little bit from the other killers and from the survivors. His transition from reality to the Entity's realm isn't necessarily the longest--Kate's has a bit of detail to it too--but it is by far the most specifically detailed, like he was just naturally able to pick up a lot more of what was going on than anyone else. Not only that, but he seems to have more or less been immediately aware of how his abilities had been effected, and some of how the reproduction realms worked. 
> 
> It's a lot to think about.
> 
> Alright! Once again, thank you to everyone who reads! And for the comments--it's always amazing to hear back from people their takes on things, and I greatly, truly value the feedback and the support. It's really been sincerely fun and rewarding to write this so far, and I'm looking forward to the rest I have outlined. It was good to get to write Feng again--she has her own, very unique flair, and hasn't had a proper chapter since near the beginning, so it was about time. For that matter, Meg should be getting another one soon too, so stay posted. I hope you all enjoy the chapter, and thank you again!


	32. Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are some great developments for the survivors, but also their fare share of new problems, especially with the Legion's arrival. Meg especially hates the Legion, but she keeps getting stuck in their trials.

They’d taken to calling the newest killer The Legion, because there were so many of them. It was a Biblical reference, ‘My name is legion, for we are many,’ and no one was even sure—like most of the killers—who’d batted around the idea first. Most of them said Adam, but Meg and Claudette held strongly to it being Kate.

Whoever had named it, the Legion was…well, a pain.

Everyone had been on the lookout for the man in the blue hoodie David and Tapp had described, so when some chick wearing a studded belt had rounded the corner on top of him instead, Adam had gotten shanked. Jake had heard him scream, had the same random girl appear out of nowhere, and punched her in the face on instinct. Since then, all versions of the Legion had been tunneling Jake’s ass like there was no tomorrow. It had taken about a week for the third one to show up—another guy, although no one knew what this one looked like, because by that time Legion had stopped playing games and it was masks on 24/7 with them. After all, even if girl-Legion had gotten the jump on a few of them while they were already wary, they’d gone from medium to high alert after that, and no more surprises were going to work.

Meg had held a special episode of _Welcome to Hell with Meg Thomas,_ inviting everyone to speculate on if they thought it was one person who could shapeshift, a tag in-tag out killer relay team, or three kids in a trench coat, and most of them had come down on relay team, with a few strong supporters of three kids in a trench coat. If the thing was really a shapeshifter of some kind, it sure wasn’t utilizing the ability. At all. So, to Meg, the group decision seemed reasonable as well. Each one was a little different. The third one was the biggest, the first one the meanest, and the second one the quickest. They’d come out of nowhere during trials—not like the pig, or the Wraith, either—not like they’d been hiding. Just…Not searching about looking for them, either. It was different, with them.

The Legion often ran around, stabbing everyone and chasing people for minutes, rarely following through immediately on any one specific person they hit (unless it had been Jake). But, their knife blades were nasty and rusty, horrible things that took forever to stitch up from. It slowed everyone down, and on top of that, it was really painful. Meg knew damage done in trials healed afterwards, live or die, but she still always came away from legion trials afraid of coming down with tetanus or something.

To Meg, it seemed like the Legion were their own class, when it came to the killers. She had always divided the killers into groups in her head. The Nightmare, the Pig, and the Doctor all leaned towards as much torture as they could work in. The Huntress, the Trapper, and the Wraith (well, before he was Philip) were the most business-like. Hunters. The Nurse and the Spirit and the Hag were all chaotic, as was the Hillbilly. Frenzied killers, running around, appearing and disappearing, the Hag often leaving traps in the most random of places. The Cannibal was his own thing, like the Legion was. Not torturous, and not a hunter, for sure, but not chaotic in the almost compulsory way the ghosts and the other chainsaw boy were. He was almost like something that killed out of habit. A mixture of 9-5, enjoyment, and daily routine. The Shape was…well, if anything, maybe like the hunters the most. No real passion for drawing kills out, _certainly_ not chaotic. It was like a finely-honed skill for him. Second-nature. Then there was the Clown, was his own kind of awful, and it wasn’t even—in Meg’s opinion—because he was a clown (which she totally was not a huge fan of), or because he ate fingers or whatever the fuck he did with them. It was because he was too much like something you might have found back home. Like a guy outside a bar, or someone waiting under a staircase, in a parking garage, in the deep shadows at the back of a crowded rock concert. He knew exactly what he was doing, and it was for pleasure, and it was in a very human way—not like the Shape, who Meg wasn’t sure _was_ 100% a normal human, not like the Huntress, who treated it like any other kind of wild hunt, not like the Wraith, who was almost ritualistic, or even the Trapper, who treated it like a job. No, the Clown was a serial killer in approach, and very much in the kind of skuzzy way you had had to worry about in reality. Plus, clown makeup, which was just the worst.

And then, then you had the Legion. 

If anything, they reminded Meg most of the Clown. At the same time, they were a very different kind of beast, but they had the same edge of familiarity. A known kind of evil.

Life before hadn’t had invisible banshee things, or ghosts, or cannibals who wore skin masks. But it had had school shooters, and guys who knifed their girlfriends. And that’s what Legion felt like to Meg.

She hated them, because they were so nonchalant. All three of them would just slide up during trials. No crouching to hunt, no setting traps. It was just the stalking walk of some high school asshole with a knife, who thought they were some edgy hot shit and had decided one night ‘fuck life, I’m going to kill my classmates’ like the little bitch-baby they were.

Meg had never _personally_ had a run-in with a school shooter, or anything of the sort—for her, like most people, it had been magazines, stories, some horrible news bulletin from two counties over, and victims who knew people you knew, but she’d known her fair share of bullies. Back in the day, she used to get into fights with them constantly. Hell, an athletic tomboy chick who liked girls, with a hard-pressed single mom and whose dad had walked out? It was open season seven days a week on her, but she’d never backed down from a fight.

When she’d been younger—pre-teen ish, maybe thirteen, Meg had known a lot of kids like her—kids who had it rough—and as she’d watched, as these kids had grown up with her, she had realized something. Some of them had gone on to find passions and friends, some had just gone on, and some had gone on to become bullies and assholes even worse than the ones who used to give them shit. That’s when Meg had realized that there were three kinds of people—the kind who went through bad shit and wanted to be left alone about it, the kind who went through bad shit and decided ‘I went through bad shit, so no one else should have to live like that,’ and the kind of people who went through bad shit and decided ‘hey, if I had to go through shit, then so should everyone else’.

Meg Thomas had no time for the last kind.

It wasn’t just that she disliked the Legion, though. There was something horribly unsettling about having someone so close to her own age, who looked so completely human—average height, uninjured, normal clothes even—just walking around casually with a hunting knife.  It wasn’t like being killed for duty, or chaos, or even sadism, really. It was like it was just for fun. And somehow to Meg it was worse coming from someone you might have been friends with at school. It kind of hurt, to think someone could have been taken from a life so much like her own, the same time, similar fashion, same generation and age, and take so little persuasion to kill her. To kill her friends. To know that their lives were, even to their own peers, so cheap. There was a kind of solace Meg had found in this life. While the Entity was this big, unknowable thing in the sky, and the killers were mostly monsters and all adults, and god wasn’t answering any prayers to come save them, there had been each other. That had been something she could count on.

And now, it kind of hurt in a deeply personal way, even if it was probably illogical, to see that even that wasn’t true. Even her people—her peers. The same group of millennials or gen zs who might have joked over old _I, Carly_ screenshots or the live action _Scooby-Doo_ movie. Even they were the enemy.

And no one could really be believed in.

She knew, deep down, that that wasn’t an entirely logical or fair way to look at it, but it still hurt. It had been something she had depended on, the companionship of the people her own age trapped here, and now it was gone, and she was being hunted for sport by assholes who, in another life, might have been her friends.

There was one upside to the Legion joining the mix, though, and it was that Laurie and Meg had had a lot of time to bond over shit-talking them. As someone with a PHD in assholes with knives, Laurie was fundamentally unimpressed by the trio, and had taken great pleasure in running them around and stabbing anyone who stabbed her.

For the first three days, Meg had thought she might be in love. Laurie was such a strong, powerful, beautiful goddess with a sharp object and an incredible jawline. Made a heart beat fast.

In all sincerity, though, while Laurie was—in many ways—a paragon, it wasn’t like Meg had entirely moved on from Nea, although she’d been trying to. The more time went by and the more of it she spent with Nea or Feng, and especially with them together, the happier they seemed to be, and the more guilty she felt for still having a little deep-seated resentment towards them. Some of that was getting easier as time went on, at least when she wasn’t alone. Feng had spent two hours talking to her about doing _Home Alone_ both for fun and, potentially, as a learning opportunity for everyone in trials, and it had been one of the most fun conversations Meg had had in weeks.

It was so weird, to like both of them personally so much, and still feel so bad about them together. And she hated herself for not being able to turn that off like a light switch. Because she knew it was wrong, and unfair, and she shouldn’t. Most of the time, she just tried not to think about it.

That had been easier than normal lately, with how many Legion trials she’d been getting. She’d been carved up by the first one—the meanest Legion. It had been one of the most painful deaths she’d experienced in this place. Slit open from collarbone to hip, right down the middle, in deep, tearing tugs. And she had known he was having so much fun doing it. The fucking bastard.

Being killed brutally wasn’t actually the biggest downside though—maybe the Legion themself wasn’t either. The biggest of all the many, many new bad things, to Meg anyway, was that with the Legion being…what it was, right now they weren’t risking it with _anyone_ new. Legion had too many faces and played too many games. There was another new guy now—this huge man with a beard that looked, to Meg, like a nice bear. No one knew who he was, or if he was safe. He had also been showing up in several trials lately, but his appearances had started almost exactly the same time the Legion’s did, and because of the Legion everyone was too afraid to chance it and talk to him.

They’d only seen him a tiny handful of times, even all of them put together, but despite their fears he seemed genuine. He’d been spotted doing gens, and on a hook. But then, the third Legion had pretended to work on a generator and snagged Claudette when she slipped over to help the first time he showed up, so what could they really count on?

If he was a real dude though? And he was seeing them avoid him at all costs, sneaking away? That was some fucked up shit. Although, it hadn’t exactly been _complete_ ghosting. No one had felt up to that. Sure, they avoided him if possible, but even though they’d had a _don’t interact with strangers_ policy going after Legion first appeared, Meg knew that several of them had at least snagged the man off the hook. She’d seen it, once, because she’d been on her way to do it herself. It had actually been funny, and she’d almost given herself away by laughing, because David had come barreling up, snagged him off the hook, and rocketed back away almost without even looking at the dude, and the poor man had tried to say something and looked so confused.

She hadn’t given herself away by laughing, though, because watching the man almost call after David and then slowly give up and back away, trying, with a hole in his chest, to find somewhere to hide and maybe try to stop the bleeding, all alone, not knowing someone else who might have been able to offer help or at least companionship was hiding from him about ten feet away behind a wall? The whole thing had gone from funny to sad really fast.

Meg remembered her first few weeks. She remembered what it was like to be alone and confused and scared. But to also be intentionally ghosted?

She didn’t like thinking about that.

After this week of uncertainty and the four trials they’d had with the new man, the group had talked it over and agreed that they should at least talk to the poor man in-trial to try and make sure he was safe. After all—if he was up on a hook, and there was another killer in the ring, that had to mean he was a survivor, right? Worst case for them if they talked would be that it was a dedicated long-con of immense proportions and he killed someone. Worst case if they kept snubbing him meant they were abandoning one of their own. Definitely a risk they were willing to take.

The other big issue of the hour was the Huntress.

Quentin and Feng now lived in mortal fear of being chosen for another of her trials. It was no wonder. I mean, sure, they weren’t actually afraid of being necessarily murdered—although Feng was pretty worried she might be in trouble for running away last time—but being kidnapped and held prisoner forever in a trial was daunting on its own.

There had been a lot of discussion on what to do about the Huntress since Feng’s breakthrough. The current best guess was that the Huntress kind of liked the idea of kids, because she’d decided to take them back and tie them up at her place when they started calling her mom. It made…at least a degree of sense. How to proceed from there was another issue, though, even if Feng was right. While Meg and Claudette and _maybe, maybe _Dwight could pull off cute kid if Feng and Quentin had, everyone else was basically fucked. There was just no way David or Tapp or Adam or Ace was talking their way through that one, and even Kate and Laurie probably looked too old and too tall to pull it off, and Jake and Nea were probably a little too rough. While Nea was cute as hell, in Meg’s opinion, she did have to agree with the consensus that it was more street-punk sexy than soft and cute like Feng.

Still, even for the ones who might be able to pull off a kid act, there was the question ‘should they?’ After all, again, being locked in a trial forever sounded pretty bad. None of them could speak more Russian than Feng, and she barely knew any at all, which meant they had no real way of communicating with the Huntress. Probably attempts to explain what was going on with them would fail, and just end up either getting people killed, or tied up in her house. And even with their own welfare aside, the Huntress really wasn’t one of the worst killers in anyone’s book, and if she _did_ keep someone successfully imprisoned? They had all agreed, and then gotten confirmation from Philip, that the Entity would _definitely_ notice that kind of thing after a while. Sure, it wasn’t always the most observant, but like with Krueger trials, it would _eventually_ catch on if something went super weird—like a torture trial going on for several hours more than a trial should, or a trial lasting multiple days become someone was stuck in the Huntress’ house. And if that happened, _she_ would probably get punished. Philip thought maybe in a way that made it so that she wouldn’t make the same mistake again—so maybe it would fuck up her vision, or something. Whatever happened, it would be bad. Very bad.

But, with the first even minor success they’d had with a killer besides Philip, they didn’t just want to give up on her either.

In the meantime, Quentin and Feng just prayed not to be drawn. Quentin had lucked out and been passed up so far. Feng had been in one trial with the Huntress, which Meg hadn’t been in but had heard about from Jake, who was _living_ after it. Apparently the second she’d heard the woman’s humming in the distance, she’d fucking vaulted the gen she and he were working on and taken off into the depths of the meat packing plant, which she had not returned from for the remainder of the trial. She hadn’t stopped helping of course—this was Feng—but she wouldn’t touch a gen with no quick exit areas or hiding spots, and her tactical skills had been suddenly honed like the edge of razor. To put it mildly, she’d turned it up to eleven. Jake said he’d thought that somehow she’d only even been on the same half of the trial grounds as the Huntress four times the whole thirty minutes.

Mostly Feng had followed other people, to have a cover for who’d been on the gen if the Huntress showed up, and Jake said he’d never seen someone so absolutely devoted to the raw concept of stealth. She was on lockers like a week-one survivor, but always the one just inconveniently far enough away from the gen that it wouldn’t be the one the Huntress used to get new hatchets. Adam had been helping them come up with good ways to create diversion for themselves, and after the rest of the group realized what was going on too, Jake said every twenty seconds or so he’d heard a loud _whump_ of some new blunt object drawing fire for Feng. The girl was a ghost. She was using string to make pebbles fall and cause timed sound distractions a whole minute after she’d gone, crawling on the floor behind barrels, sliding under stairs, in the shadows pressed to the wall and holding her breath, curled up under a chair holding a dead body with a bear trap on its head like fucking Mr. Incredible behind the bones of another super. Apparently at some point she climbed one of the cages with a corpse in it and hid for two straight minutes while the Huntress patrolled the last three gens in the area near the end, out of the sheer fear of being seen. Feng hadn’t even run to an exit—she’d waited until the only other survivor still alive (Jake) had made it out, and then crawled around until she found the hatch. The girl went undetected like Solid Snake with a cardboard box, and had been so absolutely spent from the effort that she had collapsed in exhaustion and slept for six hours after getting back to the campfire, which had put the fear of God into Quentin. Jake had told her it was about the most impressive trial run he had ever seen, and Meg would have paid so much money to have been able to see it herself.

They had had three trials with Philip. Two normal, one maybe the day after the Huntress trial Quentin and Feng had been in, the other a few days later, and then one a couple days after that, where he’d been going through the motions, so they’d assumed the Entity had been watching. He hadn’t come back to the campfire yet, but the people in the first two trials, who’d gotten to chat with him, had passed on their new information about the Huntress and been given his best takes on what to do. Meg had heard it all second hand, because she _still_ hadn’t gotten to have a trial with him. Not even the bad one.

Things weren’t all terrible though. Far from it. Tapp had been giving her detective lessons, and despite his best efforts she was pretty sure her steady level of mid-tier annoying was slowly winning her over into endearing territory with him. Also, it had made her _so much better_ at finding hexes. And god, that was a blessing.

Tapp was a really interesting guy. She liked Adam too, even though he made her feel like she was back in school, disappointing her English professor in something he’d never have thought even _could_ be done wrong, like how to pronounce ‘Macbeth’. But Tapp was a way harder read. He was professional and calm, all the time, and crazy driven in trials. As hard as she tried, she just couldn’t really figure him out. He was nice, he took his job seriously, even here, and he was smart. But…there was something else, too—something she just couldn’t put her fingers on. Maybe after how badly she’d fucked up with Laurie, never noticing anything besides a loner personality in her actions, but Meg had been trying really hard to pay attention to how the others were doing, even if they were trying to hide it, and maybe she was just overthinking it, but she felt like Tapp was…she didn’t know, maybe carrying something with him?

Only, no matter what she did, she just couldn’t get any closer to figuring out what.

It was a weird time, because so much had changed and so much new was happening—them having no idea what to do about the Huntress, the fact that Philip was actively on their side and bringing in new information, them running covert ops and most of the team spending basically all their free time trying to puzzle things out, pouring over old notes and information, and now a new killer and maybe a new survivor—but at the same time, so much was exactly the same as ever. No matter how much closer they got to understanding things, or she and Quentin worked Nightmare defense ideas from pocket-salt, to dream control techniques, to what was essentially a makeshift, spring-operated nerf gun salt launcher, there were still trials. There were normal trials, and tool upkeep, and Meg movies, and coffee, and dying.

It was so weird to try to adjust to that. It felt surreal. And in ways, a little disappointing.

The only real consolation was that the more of them banded together, the more they learned from each other and the better they got at trials. Inversely, learning a new killer was always a pain for the first few weeks, and they’d only just adjusted to the Spirit okay and suddenly had the Legion to deal with, and the Legion just kept on changing as soon as they thought they’d adjusted to its bullshit.

Not only did Meg find the Legion really unlikable, but she also felt a little personally attacked in all of this, because she hadn’t been in a single Wraith trial since they’d gotten him back, and she just. kept. getting. Legion.

“Stop muttering about the Legion and pay attention,” said Tapp, bumping her on the knee.

“Sorry,” said Meg, snapping to the sitting-down version of attention.

“Did you hear anything I just said?” he asked tiredly, running a hand over his face.

“Yeah, you said ‘Everything is important. Something is always happening, and you have to get used to not knowing what that is. Sometimes it’s easy—like a matching fingerprint, but sometimes it’ll be something little, like a small detail about a case someone shouldn’t have known, or one thing missing from a crime scene photograph that’s in another one,’” replied Meg, crossing her arm indignantly.

“And after that?” asked Tapp, not letting her get away that easily.

“You said it’s okay to,” _shit, it’s one of two ways, but they mean the exact opposite,_ “Operate on assumptions, but don’t act on them,” answered Meg, less surely. _Please be right, please be right._

“Well,” said Tapp, sitting down on the log beside her, “That’s pretty close to correct at least. Looks like you’re getting better at remembering what people said, anyway.”

They were a little into the woods, for privacy. Meg had been getting lessons on detective stuff for a while now. Honestly, Meg wasn’t sure it was something she’d actually like, much less be good at—sure, she’d always enjoyed _Psych,_ and _Monk,_ and _Castle,_ and _Nancy Drew_ books as kid, but she had pretty mixed feelings about the job. Plus, she was so…not disciplined. She wasn’t remotely confident she’d be any good at it, and mostly had asked about this to give Tapp someone to talk to. It was fun, though—and interesting, learning stuff. Not to mention helpful.

“What does that mean, though?” asked Meg, running her hand over a clump of moss on the log, “Operate on an assumption, but don’t act on it?”

“It means, you have to make guesses as a detective,” replied Tapp, clasping his hands and leaning forward, which Meg had come to recognize as body language indicating he knew he was going to have to take a hot minute to answer something. “Now, if you’re good,” continued Tapp, looking over, “You’re right a lot of the time, but even the best detective isn’t always right. No one is. But we can’t wait until we know everything for sure before we act, or we’d never get anything done in time—especially in high-pressure situations, so sometimes we have to make our best guess and start proceeding from there.”

“I guess that makes sense,” said Meg, “But it’s kind of fucked up—I mean, what about if you’re wrong—won’t that get people killed?”

“That’s why I said operate, but don’t act on it,” replied Tapp, nodding in agreement, “In my time, I worked with a lot of good cops, and a lot of scumbags. We had one—Hoffman—smart guy, great under pressure, but he had a sadistic streak. Always ready to pull the trigger. It’s exactly what you don’t want in a detective. As hard as it is, you’re right. Sometimes you run out of time and all you have is your gut to go on, but there’s almost always more space than you think before you get down to the wire. No matter how strongly we think we know something, we gotta wait to be sure before we really act. Because it’s our job to be right, and if you’re wrong, it’s your worst nightmare—it’s losing everything, or becoming the guys you chase.”

“So ‘operate’ is like…follow and try to get proof?” asked Meg.

“More or less,” replied Tapp thoughtfully, “It means keep going as if your guess was true—like a scientific theory, you’re trying to prove it. Do whatever you can to go towards the goal as if you were right, short of something you can’t undo. That’s acting, and you can’t act,”

“Until you’re sure,” finished Meg.

“Exactly,” said Tapp, smiling at her.

 _Hell yeah—I got a smile._ Meg mentally dabbed and grinned back.

“Is that really hard?” asked Meg after a second, “Waiting till you’re sure?”

“Of course,” replied Tapp, “Sometimes you’re sitting there just knowing you might get a worst case scenario, asking yourself if you’d rather be the bad guy who waited a second too long and let someone get hurt, or the one who pulled the trigger on someone innocent.”

“But killing someone who didn’t deserve it is worse?” asked Meg, already sure of the answer.

“No,” replied Tapp, voice suddenly very different, kind of dead, “Not to the person behind the gun. Especially if you knew the person who you waited too long for. But it doesn’t matter. That’s the job.”

Meg stared at him, feeling like she was getting a look at something she wasn’t really supposed to see. He looked far away, and worn out. But the moment passed, and his normal, neutral expression resumed.

“That…sounds hard,” said Meg quietly.

Tapp shrugged. “It’s supposed to be. You got to want to protect people, above everything else, and be willing to pay the price.”

 _People don’t talk like that,_ thought Meg, watching him, _Not to each other, not that I ever see—not when they actually mean it. But we talk like it in our heads. I wish we were all like you  for real, though, out loud. If everyone actually believed stuff like that, human beings might be something I could trust in._

But people weren’t usually like Tapp. They were complicated. Even here.

 

* * *

 

 

 _Again?_ thought Meg, looking up from her generator to see someone in a hoodie with their back to her speed-walking towards the hollowed out garbage truck, _Really? Oh, let me guess. Next time I’ll get…The Legion. Fantastic. So original. I love it. God fucking—_

She stopped her tirade because she misfired the gen and electrified herself. _Thank god no one was here to see that. That would have been embarrassing,_ thought Meg, sucking on the burned finger.

Probably, it would have been smart to hide for a little after making that much noise, since so far there hadn’t been any screams from the generator that the Legion had been heading to, but the thing’s last known position was still pretty far from Meg. Also, they were in one of the less fun trial grounds—one of the smallest ones. Autohaven, with the little log house. God you were fucked if you ended up here with someone with a chainsaw. And her generator was already at like fifty percent.

 _Nah, screw it. I’m staying,_ Meg decided, continuing her work. She was off to the side of the cabin on a gen, diagonally almost as far across the trial ground as possible from the garbage truck. In the distance, she saw someone she was pretty sure was David running, hoodied figure in hot pursuit.

Buckling down, Meg was at eighty percent when they got close enough she could hear the fear aura on the Legion, and she hunkered down a little behind the generator in the hopes that’d keep her from being spotted for a few more seconds. _Come on, come on._

She had been pretty sure it was David before, but when they rocketed around the corner, it wasn’t David she saw—it was Nea, with the Legion only a few steps behind, knife up.

_Wow, either I’m going blind or the killer switched targets without getting a hit in._

Nea leapt a sill and the Legion did too—which was another thing they were all still getting used to. It would have looked pretty slick if the masked slasher hadn’t landed on the other side and dashed smack into a pallet Nea was waiting to drop.

 _Heh,_ thought Meg, grinning.

She heard the killer groan in pain and grab their head—her head, it sounded like the girl one. Off by the garbage truck, David or Jake lit a gen.

 _Eat it, ya filthy animal,_ thought Meg, lighting her own generator, _That’s whatcha get._

Seeing the generator light, the Legion swung around on her, knife up, Nea temporarily forgotten.

 _Pink hair?_ That was new. And not the same… _Wait, is there a fucking fourth one?!_ thought Meg, standing up and dashing away, the Legion right behind. _How many are there???_

The house was right there, and her best bet, so Meg vaulted the sill and took off for the far door. She heard the sound of the killer matching her moves. _I hate that you can do that,_ she thought, feet pounding on the wood floor, _How am I supposed to abuse the shack as a safe space with you jumping windows and pallets with me?_

Behind her, the pink-haired Legion swung at her—way too early, missing without Meg even having to maneuver. Moving fast, Meg vaulted a low sill in a wall, and heard the Legion following form again. Circling through various debris in the area, Meg kept looking over her shoulder at the girl behind her. Big blue hoodie—huge on her. Skirt, leggings, choker, pink hair, and a weird mask, like it had been cracked and stitched up. She was breathing hard too, panting to keep up with Meg, and doing her best to weave through the junk in the yard.

Meg was paying so much attention to the person behind her that she hit a low wall and fell over it. _Well, shit._

Above her, the Legion leapt the same wall and came down hard with the knife, trying to hit her, but Meg rolled out of the way and got to her feet—up, but backed into a corner. The Legion flipped the knife in her hand in a practiced way and raised it, moving in with a secure swagger to her posture.

 _This is what I get for mentally talking so much shit,_ thought Meg, preparing for the hit she was going to have to take making a break, _Well, no one lives forever._

Rushing at the girl in front of her full-force, Meg instinctively raised an arm to shield herself and flinched, but the Legion somehow missed, faltering a little, and the knife swung through the air a few inches past her. Meg laughed and looked back in surprise at the pink Legion behind her as it sort of shook itself and started after her again.

 _Okay, maybe not,_ thought Meg, taking off for some walls up ahead, sliding across an already dropped pallet on her way. Behind her, she heard the pink Legion slide across it too, about two seconds behind.

Not losing steam, Meg rounded a corner and ducked into a little alcove behind a wall of crushed car parts and watched as the Legion rocketed past her, then stopped about ten feet out and looked around for her, confused.

_Yes. Slick, it’s working._

Meg slunk backwards, behind the full cover of a wall, and watched.

The pink haired Legion ran back to where she’d lost Meg and looked around the walls for a couple of seconds, then angrily kicked a wall and took off back into the middle of the trial grounds.

 _Shame,_ thought Meg happily, watching her go. In the distance, the generator in the shack lit up. _Heeell yeah, three down, two to go, and no one has even been stabbed. Wait a second._

A lot of the time, a draw like that meant the killer was counting on an endgame hex. _Yeah, time to put my detective in training skills to use,_ thought Meg, passing up on the nearby gen in favor of hunting down totems. _She’s really bad at this, though,_ thought Meg as she slipped off, remembering the bad swing, _Great for us._ _I’d almost feel bad for her, though, if things were different. But they aren’t, so I don’t._

It was so much easier to find totems after instructions from Tapp. Meg still didn’t have weird 6th sense for the stuff, but his tips on _how_ to pay attention had actually been helpful. Thinking over what she’d seen herself, what she’d seen in this trial ground before, good places for something like that to be hidden in the first place—especially since they were likely to be spaced out well—it worked. Meg found three of the hex totems and cleansed them and another two already broken by someone else. _No big end-game plays for you,_ thought Meg, watching the fourth generator light up a few yards off. Peeking over some debris, Meg watched the pink Legion chasing Jake over windowsills and pallets. He was _mad_ looping her. Ducking and dodging, faking her out. She was probably super angry. One generator left, and not only was no one up on a hook, no one had even been _scratched_ yet. Even at a distance, with how open this trial ground was, Meg had a good view of the whole chase as she hurried towards one of the remaining generators—up on the cabin’s porch. After leaping a low sill, Jake took off, then around a corner, then doubled back and slipped off in the opposite direction and took cover behind some debris. As the pink Legion came running out after him, Meg saw her fall for the same exact stunt she herself had pulled maybe four minutes ago. _Ooof, hon._

The girl ran around the walls a few times, circled back to where she’d lost Jake and opened a nearby locker, then gave up and hurried towards the closest generator, which luckily _wasn’t_ Meg’s.

Spotting Meg up on the porch, Jake saluted her and slid off towards the third remaining generator, just in case.

“Not bad, huh?” said Nea from right behind her.

Meg almost screamed but kept it in her throat and just kind of choked. “Good lord, Nea,” she said, scooting over to make room for her, “You’re quieter than the Pig.”

“I know,” said Nea, grinning.

“It is pretty great though,” acknowledged Meg, looking back across the trial ground where the pink Legion was chasing David around the shack fruitlessly, “She’s…So bad at it.”

“Yeah, I love it,” agreed Nea, twisting two frayed wires together. 

Off in the distance, the pink Legion suddenly left David and came running for them, knife raised.

“Aww, what?” said Nea, “At this distance? How did she even see us? We’re in shadow.”

“We might finish it before she gets here,” said Meg hopefully.

“Nah, better to just leave it and come back,” replied Nea, “We’d get it right to 95 and have to leave it just the same, plus one of us would get stabbed. Come on.”

Tugging her up behind her, Nea slipped into the cabin to make it harder for the Legion to tell which way they were exiting. She and Meg both crept upstairs and hid behind a row of tires, near the little second-story balcony.

Carefully, Meg leaned out the door and peeked down through the cracks as they heard her arriving. Beside her, Nea did the same thing. They saw the pink Legion reach the gen and lean over the windowsill, looking for them, then do a 180, and finally, seeming frustrated, turn back to the generator and kick it a few times.

“Man, our hard work,” whispered Meg, watching the generator give off sad sparks.

“Yeah, _sucks,_ ” said Nea, watching the Legion put a hand over where her eyes must have been under the mask and scan the horizon again, then take off towards the generator Jake had gone to.

“Shall we?” asked Nea, motioning to the balcony railing. Both girls vaulted it and landed fifteen feet below by the generator, quickly resuming their work.

“Wow—she really kicked it,” said Meg in dismay, “This is back to like…40%, _maybe._ How does someone so small kick a gen so hard?”

“Uhg, and the last three are close so if she monitors hard this could take _forever,_ ” sighed Nea dramatically. She cast a withering look in the direction the girl had gone, then turned back to Meg. “I wanna say she ugly, but…she fine.”

“’She fine’—don’t you _have_ a girlfriend?” asked Meg, picking up steam on the gen.

“Yeah,” said Nea like _duh,_ “But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate hotness when I see it. Doesn’t mean I’d try to _hit_ that. She might be fine, but Feng’s finer, cooler, _and_ not a serial killer. Plus, only scumbags cheat.”

“You got me there,” said Meg, pointing at her, “But what makes pink girl fine? The dyed hair? You can’t even see her face past the weird mask. She’s just some highschool asshole with a choker and a big hoodie on.”

“Okay, damn,” said Nea, “Guess she’s not your type. You like taller assholes,” she added, grinning, “With William Shatner masks.”

“Shut uuuup!” said Meg, a little too loudly, and then much, much quieter, “My bad.”

“It’s cool,” whispered Nea, laughing silently, “We’ve only got like two seconds to go anyway.”

They lit it, and the Exit gates turned on.

“Well, halleluiah,” said Nea, stretching, “Lets go find an exit.”

They left together, pausing to see where the Legion was. Before either of them saw her, they heard a voice cry out in pain—which, after a whole trial of no one losing a single drop of blood, was kind of jarring.

“Did she actually hit someone?” asked Nea in disbelief.

She had, though. David and Jake were together, off to their right, weaving past the rows of crushed cars, Jake with a cut running down his arm. The pink Legion was in hot pursuit—knife now bloody.

“Come on—I’ll get the left exit, you get the right, so they have somewhere to go,” said Nea, leaping off the porch and booking it for the closer exit.

For some reason Meg nodded, even though Nea wasn’t even looking at her anymore. She took off for the far exit, leaping low walls and slipping past cars. It was easy going. David and Jake were running the Legion around in the center of the trial area, David doing his best to act as bodyshield, giving Nea and her plenty of time and cover.

Meg reached the door easily and flipped the switch, willing it to open faster. It didn’t, but she still got it, the Legion nowhere in sight.

“We’re open!” she called loudly, and across the trial grounds she faintly heard Nea do the same thing.

After a second of waiting, Meg’s curiosity got the better of her and she slipped back out, watching for any sign of Jake, David, or the Legion. She heard them before she saw them—the terror aura and the pounding of feet, and Meg ducked to cover by the big yellow crane thing in the middle of some nearby cars and tucked her knees up to her chest to be as small and hard to see as possible as Jake and the pink Legion shot by, back towards her exit. _Man, they are never going to forgive Jake for that one suckerpunch._

They were close to the open exit, but as Jake moved past a rock, going for a pallet beside it, the Legion lunged and managed to catch him in the back, sending him down.

Breathing heavily, the pink Legion almost looked surprised, from her posture. She looked down at Jake as he groaned beneath her feet, trying to pull himself back up. The pink Legion stood there for a second, staring at him, then bent down to pick him up. Right underneath a pallet.

 _Not today,_ thought Meg, stealing closer. Across from her, she saw David, prepping for the same act. They met eyes and he gave her a nod, holding back beside the wall he was crouched at. _Right, let’s do this._

The second the girl was standing upright with Jake on her shoulder, Meg brought the pallet down on her from behind, hard, and the pink Legion screamed in pain, falling forward and dropping him. Jake stumbled, keeping his feet only shakily, and just as fast, David was beside him, helping him run for the close exit and acting as a giant meat shield.

Holding her head in pain, the pink Legion gave an angry shout and took off after them, arm raised. Still unnoticed, Meg crept along behind her, watching.

Pink girl was fast, but not fast enough to outrun the other two after being slammed in the head with a board and giving them a fair head start, and she barely made the exit entryway by the time they were safely through, out of the trial for good.

Watching them disappear, the pink girl slowly lowered her arm, then kicked the dirt with one of her shoes.

 _Nea’s probably through too,_ thought Meg, a little relieved, _I could cut back and use her door, or just wait for pink girl to move on._

Ahead of her, the pink Legion turned and looked towards the far door, then sat down dejectedly in the dirt and put her chin in her hands. After another two seconds, she made an unhappy sound and fell dramatically forward, landing face-first in the dirt and just…lying there, splayed out, face down.

 _Taking this loss kind of hard, huh?_ thought Meg, watching her, _You know, I wonder if I could just…_

Standing up, she slipped quietly to the edge of the exit way and peeked in. If the pink Legion had heard her footfalls, she was doing a good job of acting like she hadn’t.

Very slowly, Meg slid into the exit way, hugging the far walls and walking as quietly as possible past the girl on the ground. _No way, I can’t believe it._

Meg was so close she could see her breathing, see the stitching on her clothes, but the girl didn’t move. She just lay with her head in the dirt.

Meg reached the far end and hesitated, right on the threshold of safety. Then she looked back.

 _I used to do that._ It wasn’t a comfortable thought, but she had. Falling face-first on the floor in dramatic hopelessness had been a great coping mechanism in high school, because it was funny and sincere at the same time. It was stupid to be thinking about this, and she knew it. But.

Splaying out on the floor in defeat was such a human thing to do, and Meg hated it—she hated that this mean, knife-wielding psycho could walk around trying to kill her and her friends, and still have the nerve to lay down in the dirt and give up. It was already the worst to be killed by things that were painfully reminiscent of the kinds of people you knew back home—of the people Meg was friends with here. Why did it have to show some relatable thread of humanity? Why should she have to feel anything, for someone like this? And because what—because they lay down in the dirt when they lost?

Nobody who did such bad shit should have the right to still also be acting even a little bit like a normal human. It wasn’t fair.

_Come on Meg, get walking, you’re safe. Let’s go. I know what you’re thinking, but don’t do it—you’re looking back and wondering about dumb stuff, and you’re thinking about Philip—don’t you do that—just take one more step forward, God damn it Meg, you’d better not—_

“Hey.”

The pink Legion jumped, tripping over herself to stand upright, knife raised, but front all covered in dirt now.

“Whoa-whoa—wait!” said Meg, holding out her hands, “I just wanna talk, but get any closer and I’m jumping through the barrier where you can’t get me—it’s _right here,_ and trust me, I’ll do it!”

The Legion hesitated, using its non-knife arm to try and hurriedly wipe some of the dirt off itself.

“You can’t talk to me, right?” asked Meg, “That’s a killer thing?”

The girl just stood there, knife up, not coming closer, not leaving, but also not making any motion to answer.

“What if you like—nod?” offered Meg, “Or shake your head?”

The killer across from her tilted her head for a second, but didn’t nod or shake. She took a step towards Meg.

“Ah-ah-ah!” said Meg, putting half of one of her feet over the line, “I’m not kidding—I’ll go!”

She stopped.

 “This is your first trial, isn’t it?” asked Meg, watching her carefully.

The Legion didn’t answer.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes. Your first time, and you did…” Meg looked around for dramatic emphasis, “Pretty bad.”

Pink Legion made an angry sound and took another step.

“I am one second from crossing this line and being gone,” said Meg, leaning away from the girl with the knife, dangerously close to crossing the barrier this time.

“Then go!” exploded the pink Legion, waving her knife in the air like she was slashing at something.

“Oh, you can talk,” said Meg, relaxing a little and bringing the foot back in.

The pink Legion made an unhappy noise and put her free hand up to her mask in frustration. “What do you want?” she hissed, “To gloat?”

“I mean, I was thinking about that,” admitted Meg, “Earlier. But no. Just a question.”

“Why should I answer?” whispered the pink Legion, looking nervously over her shoulder, then edging another half-step closer.

“No—I see what you’re doing—you stop that,” said Meg, pointing at the Legion’s feet, “You’re trying to get close enough to grab me. Just because you’re talking now, don’t think that’s gonna work.”

The girl didn’t back up, but she did stop again, only about five feet back now.

“I want to know, if this is your first trial and you did this bad, then how much trouble are you in with the Entity?” asked Meg.

The Legion’s posture changed at that. She seemed almost surprised.

“How…? What?” asked the pink haired Legion, voice nervous.

“Come on, I’ve been here awhile,” said Meg, only half-bluffing, “We know you all get punished if you fuck up. How much trouble are you in?”

The pink girl shrugged.

“You really don’t know?” asked Meg.

“No,” said the girl, sounding on edge now.

“What does it do to you?” asked Meg, glancing up at the sky.

The pink Legion turned its head away and didn’t answer.

“Bad?” asked Meg, “You don’t look scarred, but. I guess there’s other stuff.”

The pink Legion turned its head back towards her, then leveled its knife at her threateningly. “What do you care?”

“I mean, obviously a little, or I wouldn’t ask,” said Meg, taking a half-step towards the Legion. “If you’re just some asshole with a knife, we don’t have a lot to talk about, but if you’re stuck here too, I feel kind of bad that you have to get fucked up if we don’t.”

“I’m not friendly,” said the pink Legion, “I’m a killer.”

“Come on—I saw you miss me earlier,” said Meg, making a guess and rolling with it full-steam ahead, “Maybe that was on accident—maybe you hesitated with Jake because you were just surprised you actually got one of us, but I think maybe you don’t really want to be here. Am I right?”

“Wrong,” said the pink Legion, keeping her knife leveled, “I just was off my game today. I’ll get everyone next time.”

“I wonder if that’s true,” replied Meg, narrowing her eyes. The Legion looked a little uncomfortable, being so carefully scrutinized, but after a second Meg shrugged and kept going, “Well, either way. Whatever happens to you after I walk over this line, it’s bad, right?”

The girl in front of her hesitated, then said “I mean, duh,” really, really quietly.

_Meg, I’m begging you, don’t do this. It’s so stupid. You know nothing about her except that she’s a killer—she says she’s not friendly, take her word. Maybe they get in trouble if they don’t murder you all well, but that doesn’t make murdering you guys okay. If the Entity tried to turn you into a killer and you gave in from torture, that wouldn’t be all fine and sympathetic—it’d be super fucked up! _

That was all true. _But just the same,_ thought Meg, _If Jake became a killer I wouldn’t hate him for it. I’d feel bad for him. Or Dwight, or Claudette, or Nea, David, Ace—any of us. Just because it’s not justified doesn’t mean I can’t choose to feel bad about it. Is that really so bad?_

Across from her, Meg heard the pink Legion mutter, “What kind of stupid question…” under her breath.

“Has it happened to you before?” asked Meg, “Getting punished?”

The pink Legion shrugged noncommittally. “Why? Why do you want to know?” she asked accusatorily.

_Don’t buy it. Don’t be dumb, Meg._

“Because I was thinking about offering you a deal,” said Meg, squaring her shoulders, “You take off your mask and let me see your face, and I’ll let you sacrifice me.”

_Well. Damn. Ya went ahead and did it._

“Oh, fuck off,” said the pink Legion, crossing her arms.

“I’m serious,” said Meg, putting her hands on her hips.

“What would you do that?” asked the Legion, sounding suspicious and confused, “You’d let me kill you if I take off my mask?”

“Because,” sighed Meg, gesturing at the ground between them, “I used to do that—at school. Lay down on the floor or in the dirt if I got tired and disappointed. So, I think you can’t be as bad as you act. I guess…consider it a show of good faith.”

“So, like, what, I let you go next time you’re in a trial with me?” asked pink Legion, still sounding confused.

“We both know I couldn’t make you honor that deal,” said Meg with a grin, “You’ll turn out to be a decent person or a bad one, and I can’t control that, so I’m not about to make a deal I know I’ll probably get backstabbed on. Mask for the kill. You know that’s _way_ more than fair.”

“Why would you want to know what I look like enough to die?” asked pink Legion, going from confused to astounded.

“It’s not—no,” said Meg, deflating a little, “It’s a gesture, Pink. A show of good faith that if there _is_ something to you other than ‘I’m a killer,’ you might have options. Even here.”

“Are you…trying to talk me down from being a killer?” asked pink Legion, tilting her head.

“I guess, kind of,” said Meg awkwardly.

“By letting me kill you?” clarified Legion.

“…Maybe?” answered Meg, deflating a little more.

“Incredible,” said pink Legion, sounding almost like she might laugh.

“Look, I’m trying to be nice here,” said Meg, “Do you want the deal?”

The pink haired Legion considered for a second, then nodded. “But just so you know, this won’t change anything between us. Next trial is all business. I show you my face, you get hooked, and we’re done. Fair, right?”

“Fair is fair,” said Meg, extending a hand.

After a moment, the pink haired Legion took the hand and shook it. “Deal.”

“Let’s see the face,” said Meg.

“No, you walk back out with me,” said pink Legion, “I know how this works too. If I show you here, you’ll just laugh at me and jump over the line and run off. We go in far enough so that if you backstab me, I have a fighting chance to catch you.”

“I wouldn’t do that, I got honor,” said Meg, “But okay.”

Legion turned and waited for her to join her at the door. Meg did.

“I’m Meg, by the way—Meg Thomas,” said Meg as they walked, leaning forward and smiling at her, trying to get a look at the face through the crack in the mask.

“Don’t tell me that,” said pink Legion, straightening up, “It’ll make it weird.”

“You could tell me your name,” suggested Meg, folding her arms behind her back and walking carefree beside the knife-wielding killer.

“You’re really weird,” replied Legion, sending her what was probably a scathing look.

“Takes one to know one,” said Meg.

“Takes one what—a weirdo?” asked pink Legion, glancing at her.

“Yup,” answered Meg, keeping pace.

The pink Legion shook her head and kept walking, leading Meg up to a hook dead center in the trial area and stopping, then taking a breath.

“Here good?” asked Meg.

“Yeah,” replied the pink Legion, whirling on her and slicing her across the chest.

It wasn’t a deep wound, and Meg stumbled backwards more hurt emotionally than physically, and turned to run, the pink Legion hot on her trail. There was an old truck nearby, and she skidded to temporary safety behind it, keeping it between her and the Legion.

“I can’t believe you’d do that!” said Meg, genuinely dismayed, “I was already going to let you kill me, and you still wanted to just stab me—what, just so you can get me your own way?”

Pink Legion didn’t answer, just tried to run around the pickup bed fast enough to catch up to Meg. It didn’t work.

“That’s so mean! I go out on a limb because I feel bad for you, and you do this?” Meg asked, pointing at the gash on her chest, “What the hell is wrong with you! You’re not even human anymore!”

The pink Legion hesitated across the truck from her. “Are you crying?”

“I’m not crying—I’m just allergic to jerks!” shouted Meg, deeply ingrained response to being asked that question automatically taking over. She was, very definitely, crying.

Spinning on her heel, Meg took off for the door Nea had opened, feet kicking up dirt in her wake. Behind her, the pink Legion had to circle half the car before pursuing, but she was gaining quickly. Meg was incredibly fast, though, and her years of track paid off, rocketing her to the safety of the exit a few seconds ahead of her pursuer.

“Wait!” shouted the Legion behind her as she got to the far side of the entry.

“I’m not coming back in now,” snapped Meg over her shoulder, turning to look.

“No, I know,” said the pink Legion, stopping in the doorway. “I just—I’m sorry. That I did that.”

“Do you think I’m going to believe that?” asked Meg in disbelief, turning to face her, blood running down her crop-top and soaking into it.

“Not really,” said the pink Legion, sounding dejected, “But I am sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I thought you’d just run away no matter what.”

_Don’t buy it. She’s full of shit—she just still wants a kill without it being a handout._

“That’s real convincing after being stabbed,” said Meg, putting her hands up to her wound to try to hold some of her blood in.

The pink Legion slumped her shoulders. “Yeah,” she said quietly, “I know.”

Meg turned to go.

“Wait,” said the Legion again.

For some reason, Meg did, hands still pressed to her chest, trying to slow down the bleeding.

The pink Legion put the knife in her hoodie pocket and reached up with both hands and removed her mask. After a second, she took a breath and opened her eyes.

Behind the mask, the girl looked so uncomfortably normal. Like anyone you might see on a campus, at the mall, walking down the street. Young, blue eyes, smudged makeup.

“You have braces?” asked Meg.

The girl flushed. “Yeah. It’s not my fault.”

“No—I like them,” said Meg awkwardly, feeling bad that the girl had taken her surprise as an insult.

“You like…my braces?” asked the girl.

“Yeah. They make you look cute,” said Meg.

The pink Legion darted her eyes to the side, like she had no idea how to respond to that.

Meg took a shaky breath. “Okay,” she said, stepping forward, away from the barrier. “Deal’s a deal. Let’s get it over with.”

“Wait, really?” asked pink Legion, looking surprised.

“I shook on it, didn’t I?” said Meg rather pointedly.

The pink Legion looked away, ashamed, and turned her mask over in her hands uncomfortably.

“That one okay?” asked Meg, pointing to a hook only about fifteen feet away. The pink Legion nodded.

Warily, Meg walked up to her, keeping a little distance between them this time. About halfway there, the girl put her mask back on.

Meg didn’t really know why she’d done this—especially now, after being stabbed. Sure, a deal was a deal, but that had already gone out the window. It had been a gut choice. Definitely a stupid one, but for some reason it had been important to her to make it. She wasn’t sure if it was about being the better person, or about fairness, or if she still just felt some kind of illogical sympathy. Maybe going through with it just held the worst-case outcome she would regret the least.

 _This is stupid,_ thought Meg, looking at the fast-approaching hook with a sinking feeling, unable to totally tune out the painful throbbing in her chest where she’d been sliced, _Why are you doing this, Meg? Why do you care?_

Beside her, she could tell the pink haired Legion was probably wondering something close to the same thing. She kept stealing looks, like she half expected Meg to book it at any second.

“Okay,” said Meg, stopping in front of the hook and turning to face the Legion, “Let’s get this over with.”

The Legion nodded wordlessly and put its hands on her waist, hoisting her over its head. Meg took a deep breath and closed her eyes, braced as much as she could be for impact. The motion stopped, Meg just hanging in the air.

“Uh?” said Meg after a second, cracking open an eye.

The Legions arm’s were starting to shake.

“Are you going to…?” Meg prompted, looking at the huge hook behind her.

“I can’t do it,” said the pink Legion in dismay, letting go.

Meg slammed into the ground and had to pull herself back up to her feet. When she got up, the Legion had her head in her hands and was walking in a circle, muttering to herself.

“You can’t?” asked Meg, surprised.

“No,” wailed the pink haired girl, talking faster and faster, “It’s too much. Now that I know your name, and you came back with me after I was an asshole, and keep saying dumb shit, and you cried at me, and didn’t make fun of my braces, and it looks so painful, and you’re bleeding on me, and you said I look cute, and,”

“—Whoa, whoa,” said Meg, putting a hand on her shoulder, trying to stop her frantic circling, “Calm down. Look, if you don’t hook me, how much trouble will you get in?”

“So much,” said the pink Legion, turning her head to look at Meg, low-key distraught.

“What will happen?” asked Meg, sincerely both worried and curious.

The Legion shook her head. “I can’t tell you.”

“You _can’t_?” asked Meg, suspicious.

“I’m not making it up!” wailed the pink Legion, sounding genuinely distressed, “I could make up a good lie—say I’ll get my arms smashed or my skin burned off or something, but I’m not lying.”

 _I mean, those aren’t amazing lies, but I catch your drift,_ thought Meg. “Okay, okay,” she said out loud, trying to sound reassuring, “I believe you.”

“I’m going to get in so much trouble,” said the Legion, sinking to her knees and tucking her hoodie over her whole body like a pillowcase, then wrapping her arms around her knees and rocking back and forth.

 _I can’t believe it,_ thought Meg, watching her, astounded. _For real? Cutthroat is chickening out?_

“Hang on—don’t freak out—all you have to do is hook me. One kill isn’t great, but you’ll live I bet,’” said Meg encouragingly, “It’s not so hard.”

“I can’t do it,” said pink Legion, burying her face in her knees and rocking faster, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

“Yes you can,” said Meg, crouching beside her and putting a hand on her shoulder, “We just have to make that easier on you. Here, stand up and I’ll start saying mean things. Then do it while you’re mad. Okay,” she added, standing up and offering Legion a hand.

“Do you think that’ll work?” asked the pink Legion, looking up from her knees and then tentatively taking the offered hand and using it to pull herself to her feet.

“Let’s give it a go,” said Meg. She let go of Legion’s hand and cleared her throat. “Okay. Here we go. Here we go! Come on! Come on and do it, you pansy-ass weak lying little bitch! You’re too chicken to hook me!”

“That’s not working at all,” said pink Legion, “because I know you’re just saying it to try to help me get angry.”

“Okay, uh,” said Meg, thinking fast. She smacked her.

“Ow!” said the Legion.

“Fuck!” said Meg, holding her hand as the ripples of pain from slamming into the mask traveled up and down her fingers, “What the hell is that made out of, steel??”

“Sorry,” said Legion awkwardly. “Yeah, it’s metal.”

“No, don’t be sorry, get mad!” snapped Meg.

“I’m trying!” snapped back pink Legion.

 _This is ridiculous,_ thought Meg, _I’m trying to help a killer psych up to kill me. How did I get here?_

“Okay! Let’s try again! Come one!” said Meg, shoving Legion aggressively, “Come on! Come on and hook me you little bitch! You’re a weak little, backboneless tryhard whose greatest accomplishment in life is not having snapped her braces wires this month,” shouted Meg, digging deep for potential insults. It wasn’t working well enough, so she shoved her again and kept going, “You aren’t shit! You hear me? You’re nothing! You haven’t done shit your whole life, and you never will! You’re petty and mean, and worst of all you’re a murdering little psychopath!”

That seemed like it was working a little better, because Legion’s breathing sped up, so Meg forged ahead.

“Come on, bitch! You know what? Your family is probably glad you’re gone, because all you know how to do is take things and hurt people! What would they say if they could see you? They’d say that you’re a talentless, worthless little piece of shit who lets everyone else push her around, and has so little of her own personality left at this point that she’s bound to die alone because there’s not enough person left for anyone to stay for!”

The Legion stared at her.

“I’m so sorry, was that too far?” asked Meg immediately, backpedaling.

“No, it was just…really accurate,” said the Legion.

 _Really? That’s just more or less what the former captain of the track team said to me about what my dad would think when I beat her in a vote and got her job,_ thought Meg. “Uh, sorry,” she said out loud, “For what it’s worth, I don’t think any of that’s really true. I mean—I know I don’t know you, but you falling on the ground sad made me stick around to get murdered, so there’s definitely enough person in you for you to not end up dying alone.”

“You know,” said the Legion, a hint of a smile in her voice, “You’re really, really bad at this whole getting me in the mood to kill you thing?”

“Well, you’re pretty bad at killing me, so, right back atcha,” said Meg, making a finger-gun and firing it. Then her expression got more serious. “Look, Pink, you’re going to get in trouble if that thing comes to check on you and sees us chilling. I’ll be fine—I die all the time. Often more than once a day. You gotta do it.”

The pink Legion took a deep breath, then nodded. “Okay. Okay, I’ll try.”

Meg held her hands out to the side and the Legion picked her up and rammed her through the hook.

 _That! Fucking! Hurts like hell!!_ Thought Meg, screaming in pain, _Why! The fuck!! Did I think it would hurt less if voluntary! It fucking doesn’t!!_

“Meg?” asked the pink Legion, tilting her mask up to look at her from under it.

“Fuck!” said Meg, trying to stop convulsing. “Yeah, I’m okay—It just hurts.”

Above them, the dark cloud that signified the Entity’s approach appeared. _It always comes so fast if you’re the last one,_ thought Meg unhappily.

“It’s coming,” hissed Meg, “You gotta be all business now. But thank you for not being as bad as I thought, Pink.”

“Yeah,” said the pink Legion, giving the cloud a scared look and pulling her mask back down over her face, “Thanks for saving me,” she whispered back up, “And my name’s Susie.”

She took a step back then, out of the way, and the Entity’s claws burned into existence around Meg, struggling to get past her arms and dig through her chest to hollow her out and drag her up above to wherever they went when sacrificed.

Meg fought it, as long and hard as she could, but it was over fast. The last thing she saw was Susie watching her from about ten feet back, head half turned away like she didn’t really want to see.

 _Maybe you aren’t all bad,_ thought Meg as the Entity ran her through.

_Just maybe._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Legion is a very interesting killer--or set of killers, and in ways really is harder to reconcile with than a lot of the others. Not as scary or horrific, but kind of personal. Even from just their perk descriptions, it seems like the inverse must be partially true for them--with the whole "Smartasses get killed" and "This is no place for cowards" quotes from them. It's a lot more of a distorted human-to-human relationship than most of the others. For example, Evan, Philip, Sally, Michael, Max, Rin and Anna all have others speaking about them in their perk descriptions, and Evan doesn't even get a he/she/they, he's just always "it" in his perk descriptions. Lisa may or may not be the one speaking in Ruin's description, but it's very supernatural sounding, and while Herman gets one quote and it is directed potentially at survivors, it's scary/crazy in typical horror-movie-baddie fashion and not very human. Some of the Cannibal's perk quotes involve speaking about humans, but none are by him--they're all by other members of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and they're all kind of horrifically dehumanizing towards others. Adiris has her own, but they are occult-sounding personal scriptures, which again is a large degree of intentional separation from usual human-human relationship. Jeffrey doesn't even get quotes with his perks, period--which is kind of surprising. Other than Legion, only Amanda and Freddy have quotes directed at other humans in all three perks, but theirs are similar to each other and not to Legion's. Amanda and Freddy's perks reflect the way they treated people in their films/backstories, and focus on their power-hungry sadistic streaks, ways of treating people like toys, and chosen inhumanity.  
> Which isn't to say the Legion's are any more healthy than everyone else's, but they are very distinctly unique. Just a little bit off from being generic human shit-talking. It makes for some interesting food for thought on their point of view in how they think of and relate to the survivors.
> 
>    
> While I know I just mentioned her, doubt I'll actually be going all the way to the Plague and Jane Romero in this fic, since I've had the whole thing outlined for so long and would have to make some changes--although fictional Oprah is incredibly, unbelievably tempting. But, it was really enjoyable to get to Legion and Jeff. Honestly, in a lot of ways poor Jeff has the biggest "Devs, fix this" backstory--god, with that rescue dog wandering the streets looking for them? What sadist was responsible for that? It's too far.  
> 
> 
> Anyway! Thank you again for all the continued support, and I hope you have as good a time reading Legion as I did writing them! Again, all of the readers, kudos, and comments mean so much to me. Thank you for all of it, and I really hope you enjoy the chapter! You all are the best.


	33. November Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meg is excited about her progress with Susie. No one else is. Isolated in the Entity's realm, Jeff does his best.

 

“Hey. Hey. Hey—”

“Would you please stop nudging me with your foot? I’m listening. What?” said Jake, mouth full, unhappily setting his food down in his lap.

Meg grinned at him. “So, I haven’t told anyone else because she’s jumpy, but guess what?”

“Wh—” he stopped and looked at her for a second and his expression become one of supreme disappointment, “Oh no.”

“The pink haired Legion and I are…kinda tight now,” said Meg, grinning at him.

“What did you do?” asked Jake.

“I just stayed behind and talked. She’s kind of bratty, but not too bad, actually,” said Meg happily. “She freaked about a lot of stuff though, so wait to tell everyone else until after I’ve had another go. I let her kill me Philip-style so she wouldn’t get in trouble, and like, damn she couldn’t ‘pull the trigger, Piglet,’ if you catch my drift.”

“I’m saddled with your drift,” sighed Jake, picking up his Claudette-style hotcake and taking a bite out of it.

“If everyone suddenly starts being friendly,” continued Meg, completely unphased, “Then she’s super fucked, because she’s not good at killing anyone already.”

“Why did you tell just me?” asked Jake.

“Well, I was thinking about how the Legions all hate your ass because you punched one of them,” said Meg.

“Still don’t regret it,” interjected Jake.

“Okay, well, it seems like maybe not great for your K/D ratio, so I thought maybe if you’re nice to Susie, at least one of them won’t be killing you, and maybe she’ll talk the others down just a little,” said Meg.

“The only one of us that actually has a K/D ratio is David,” said Jake. He stopped and choked on his bread when he realized what he’d said out loud and Meg stared at him, disbelieving. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” said Jake, wheezing as he tried to dislodge chunks of grain from his windpipe, “I don’t know why the fuck I said that. Meg—”

Meg just kept staring at him, open-mouthed, and then slowly went and put her hand over her mouth.

“Meg,” choked Jake, leaning forward on one arm to hold himself up, coughing and right on the brink of sincerely being in danger of choking legitimately, “Say something. Fuck.”

“I can’t fucking believe you said that,” said Meg, still covering her mouth, but Jake could suddenly tell she was smiling behind the hand.

“Why are you smiling?” he choked out.

“Because it’s super funny, but oh my god, don’t say that in front of David,” she added, kicking him in the shin.

Jake buckled, finally clearing his wind pipe out while lying on his side.

“You going to be okay, or is your K/D about to hit even with him because you choked yourself?” asked Meg, looking down at him.

“I’m fine,” said Jake, closing his eyes and coughing weakly, “Just leave me to die.”

Meg shook her head and sat down beside him. “So, before I was so inappropriately interrupted, I was saying you have to be nice to Susie. So maybe the Legions will quit hating you.”

“She has a name?” asked Jake between coughs, “And it’s Susie?”

“Mmhmm,” said Meg, “But you can’t tell anyone else until I’ve talked to her again.”

“Got it,” said Jake, not about to fuck with her after being so graciously forgiven.

“Good,” said Meg. She stood up and started to walk off.

“Wait,” called Jake, still laying on the ground, “You said ‘Bratty’? How bratty?”

Meg stopped and considered. “Megan from _Drake and Josh?_ ”

“Doesn’t help me,” said Jake, “I never watched _Drake and Josh._ ”

“YOU NEVER WATCHED _Drake and Josh?”_ exclaimed Meg.

“No, not everyone watched _Drake and Josh,_ Meg,” said Jake tiredly from the ground.

She shook her head at him. “You know, you’re really hard to talk to?”

“I get that a lot,” said Jake.

“Did you watch anything other than _Parks and Recreation,_ or am I gonna have to be giving you every reference I make on a one-show basis,” asked Meg, sounding both astounded and disgusted.

“Just give me a scale of 1-10,” sighed Jake.

“I am so sad for you,” said Meg, shaking her head, “And I don’t know—seven? There’s types though. Like, Miranda feels accurate, maybe a smidge Quinn Morgendorffer, but like, Muffy from _Arthur?_ …Well, _duh, o_ bviously not so much.”

“Why am I the one who’s hard to talk to…” said Jake under his breath.

“She’s cool though. I like her,” said Meg, ignoring it, “People can be both.”

“Okay,” said Jake, giving in, “Thanks for the tip.”

Meg nodded and left to look for Tapp.

 

* * *

 

 

“You did _what?_ ” asked Tapp, staring at her.

“So, don’t tell the others, okay, because I don’t want everyone to try to make friends with her until I try to get to know her better,” said Meg, “Or she’s going to freak out.”

“I wasn’t planning on it—girl, are you crazy?” said Tapp, still looking aghast, “What is it with all of you kids and running around trying to make friends with serial killers and letting them kill you? I mean, I can’t ignore that it’s okay so far with Mr. Ojomo, but you’re all out of your minds. Have you _seen_ the things here?”

“Well, yeah,” said Meg defensively, enthusiasm faltering a little, “Of course. But I really liked her. She was rough at first, but she didn’t want to kill me by the end of it, and—”

“—Or she’s stringing you along,” said Tapp, tone conveying fairly equal parts concern and annoyance, “You let her kill you. If you think you’re friends, she probably can guarantee herself a death in any trial involving you, even if she can’t catch anyone else. You said she was terrible at chasing people—of course it’s an offer she’s going to take. The girl would be stupid not to.”

“But,” said Meg, face falling, “We know they get punished if they mess up—”

“Being coerced doesn’t excuse murder,” said Tapp, “It’s still a choice. Someone puts a gun to your head and tells you to shoot someone or die, and you pull the trigger, blood is on the hands of the person giving the order, sure, but it’s on yours too. You chose you over them. And these kids,” he continued, upset and trying hard to persuade her, “You’ve seen them. They _like_ it. They’re sick. The way they hunt—”

“—I know, I know!” said Meg, cutting him off, “But she wasn’t like the other three. I think she didn’t want to do it.”

“Based on what?” asked Tapp, almost snapping at her.

“On a hunch,” said Meg, voice quiet.

Tapp paused, seeing the look on her face and feeling a little bad. He let out a breath, calming down himself.

“You said to make the best guess you can under pressure,” said Meg, looking up at him, “I hate the Legion as much as everyone else—they’re the worst—they’re way too normal to have any good excuse for acting like that. But I thought maybe she was different, and if I was right and didn’t do anything to try and help her, it seemed like that would be the thing I’d regret later, not trying to help and getting stabbed in the back.”

Watching her, Tapp let out a low sigh and nodded. “Alright. Alright, you did good then,” he said, relenting. “But you can’t be so reckless. You don’t know what these people are like. What they’re willing to do. You’ve been asking me to tell you about being a detective, but you’re not one. You’re a kid. You gotta take better care of yourself. Even if you choose to be a detective someday, that means being willing to die to protect someone else if the time comes; it doesn’t mean go looking for that. Think of your friends, family. You matter too.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” said Meg seriously, “They can’t kill me for real.”

“There’s a lot of bad stuff that can happen to you that doesn’t involve dying,” said Tapp, putting a hand on her shoulder, “Besides, we die all the time here, but you can’t expect me to believe it isn’t hard. Every single death is hard. It feels real, even if we come back.”

 _That’s true,_ thought Meg, _I try not to think about it. Ever. And I joke about it to make it less scary. But dying hurts a lot._ “Okay, I’ll be more careful,” said Meg, “But only if you don’t give me any more speeches like that. Because if this were a buddy cop movie, I’d be the inexperienced but enthusiastic rookie, and you’d be the veteran two weeks from retirement, and speeches like that are just. Just death flags, all over the place. Nothing but flags.”

Tapp gave her a tired smile, like he both wished she wouldn’t joke like this all the time, and simultaneously found that she did this to be a little endearing.  “Stop acting like a dumb rookie, and I won’t have to,” said Tapp.

“Fair,” agreed Meg.

“And if we’re talking about dumb stuff to say in this kind of place,” added Tapp, letting go of her shoulder, “’What’s the worst that could happen?’ is pretty high up there.”

“Shit,” whispered Meg, “Shit, you’re right.”

“I was making a joke. Don’t get superstitious about this,” said Tapp, giving her a tired look.

“Okay,” said Meg, trying to shake it off, “Can you give me any advice?”

“On the Legion?” asked Tapp, surprised.

“Well, yeah,” said Meg, “That’s why I told you. No one except you really has experience with criminals. If she’s part of some killer gang, how do I convince her to listen to me instead of them?”

“Usually?” said Tapp, “Make sure they’re safe. You can appeal to a lot of things—fear, money, humanity—but none of it’s worth a thing if they believe coming to you is a death sentence.”

“Which we definitely can’t do,” said Meg thoughtfully.

Tapp nodded.

“Okay. Well, is there anything else?” said Meg a little dejectedly.

“Not reliably,” said Tapp, “What you did already is really the only thing. Occasionally—not often, not reliably, but somethings, you get someone who really can be convinced just by appealing to their humanity.”

“Like Philip,” said Meg.

“Well, if he’s on the level then he’s not exactly a what most people would think of as a murderer, but sort of,” replied Tapp thoughtfully.

“So, the best thing I can really do is just try to be her friend?” asked Meg.

“If she really isn’t like the others,” said Tapp, emphasizing each ‘if’ as he spoke, “And if she really does like you, and if she really doesn’t like killing, then you know she’s got to be miserable. If you really care about her already for some reason,”

“Oh, I do,” confirmed Meg absently, “I mean I want her help too, but I feel bad for her. And she seems nice—sort of.”

“Then the only real thing you can do is try to help her not be as miserable,” said Tapp, “You can’t guarantee her safety—in fact you’re very definitely the worse option for that. But sometimes people are willing to pick where they’re happy over where they’re safe.”

“That…makes sense,” said Meg, a little more happy than she’d been a few seconds ago, “That’s actually something I could do, I think. Thank you,” she added, giving him a quick hug and letting go just as fast—before he had a chance to pry her off or complain about it. “You’re the best!”

“Hey,” Tapp called after her as she took off back towards the campfire.

Meg stopped and turned to listen.

“I know you want this, but be careful,” said Tapp.

“Don’t act like a dumb rookie partner,” confirmed Meg, saluting.

Tapp shook his head at her. “Don’t let yourself get hurt.”

 

* * *

 

 

Alice was about nine now.

Getting older.

When he’d met her, she’d been only four. Cowering in a corner, as far away from him as possible, looking through a chain link fence.

He’d felt bad for her, and walked up to the gate to try and get a better look, and she’d snarled at him and started to bark, and the young man showing him around had apologized and tried to pry Jeff away, explaining she’d been found on the streets in pretty bad shaped—dogfighting reject left to die.

Jeff had loved her immediately. “Is she up for adoption?” he’d asked, turning to the surprised young man beside him.

“Uh—I think not,” he’d replied, leaning to look at the little chart hanging on the dog’s chain link gate. He’d flipped through the pages and turned back to Jeff, apprehensive. “She technically is,” he’d said, “But I don’t think she’s really ready yet. She’s scared of people—especially men, and she’ll snarl and bark or run away—even bite if she feels threatened. Probably she’s only been listed as adoptable because if a dog stays here without being up for adoption long enough when we’ve got a backlog of applicants, we’re supposed to euthanize to make room for others.”

“How long has she been here?” Jeff had asked, watching the dog pressed up against the corner of its cage, hackles raised.

“About a year, looks like,” the man had replied, “With no change.”

“I’ll take her,” Jeff had said, turning back to the man with a smile, and knowing in his heart this was a decision he was never going to regret.

The man hadn’t wanted to let him. He’d insisted on showing Jeff over a dozen more adoptable dogs, but Jeff had been unswayed. Eventually, the man had given in with a warning that dogs were a forever commitment and Jeff couldn’t just bring her back when he realized how aggressive she was. He’d nodded and thanked the man, and gone to the store.

He’d bought a large dog bed a nice cream color with a green print like vines, a variety of toys and food, a food and water dish set, four types of treats, a leash, a collar, and a crate.

When he’d gone to pick up the dog, she’d run away from him and hunched up in the back of her cage again, growling. He’d stayed in there with her, just sitting on the floor and trying to coax her with treats for about half an hour. Eventually the woman on staff that day had stopped offering to help him get her into the crate and just left him to his long and fruitless attempt to build a little trust.

The dog had been cut up and scarred, one ear half gone, and had a bad limp in one leg. Her name on the chart had been Ruby, but Jeff had never heard anyone at the place call her that, so he named her Alice on the spot, sitting on the floor in the back of a shelter, surrounded by cages of barking dogs. Her limp reminded him of a dog on an album cover for one of the first heavy metal bands he’d heard back in the 90s, so ‘Alice’ it had been, after the band. He’d started to call her that, sitting on the floor of her cage, offering her food. She’d sniffed the air, curious, but too afraid to approach him, and Jeff had gently started to slide pieces over to her so she wouldn’t have to come over to get them.

After a few minutes of snarling at him and staring him down, she’d snatched a piece of a jerky treat closest to her and chewed on it between growls, and Jeff had started to sing to her from the album she’d brought to mind.

“Yeah, it's over now, but I can breathe somehow. When it's all worn out, I'd rather go without. You know its been on my mind. Could you stand right there, look me straight in the eye and say that it's over now?” He’d tapped the floor with a finger, keeping time. The dog had watched him, suspicious, but good ear perked, listening.

Every so often, Jeff had slid closer, which Alice hadn’t liked, but there hadn’t been anywhere else to go, and he did it in tiny increments until he was very close. Then, very slowly, Jeff had reached over and tried to pet her. She’d snapped at him and bitten his hand, teeth sinking deep into the flesh on the back of his hand, but Jeff had held perfectly still and let her, not trying to wrench his hand free, not shouting, no retaliation. “We pay our debt sometime. Well it's over now, yet I can see somehow, when its all gone wrong it's hard to be so strong,” he’d kept humming, slowly reaching out his other hand and placing it out in the air close to the first one she still had her teeth in, trying to let her get his scent.

She had let go of his hand after a second.

It had been bloody, and it had hurt, but Jeff had known he’d taken it too fast for her and scared her, so he’d stayed there, just trying to get her used to him. After about another hour, the woman working at the desk had come back and begged him to take the dog home, and he’d finally obliged. Alice hadn’t liked being forced into the crate, but Jeff had been as gentle as possible. While he carried her out to his van, she’d whimpered and growled and chewed on the bars, and he’d kept on telling her everything was going to be okay, kept on singing to her, calling her Alice.

When he got home, he’d let her out in the house and she’d run away from him. That was fine. Jeff had a dog door that led into a fenced backyard, so she would be able to get around on her own, and he didn’t need to make her stay near him yet. He’d let her explore alone, setting out food and water for her and calling her name, not really hurt or surprised when she didn’t come.

It had taken only about half a day for him to start seeing Alice. When she thought he was far away, she would sneak out from wherever she’d been hiding and go eat the food he had left out for her, but occasionally he’d catch a glimpse. If he tried to get near her, she’d run away, but Jeff never chased her down.

After three days of this, Jeff started to notice her in other places. She would sometimes poke her head around the corner of whatever room he was in and watch him. If he noticed her, he’d turn around and call out to her in greeting, and she’d run away, but she always came back to spy more after a few minutes. Jeff started to carry treats in his pockets, and when he would see Alice sneaking around to watch him, he’d call her name in greeting and toss her some food. He also started to sing, almost everywhere he went, so it would always be easy for Alice to find him.

She started to get closer and closer to him, but still always ran away if he was the one making an attempt to close the distance, until one night there had been a terrible thunderstorm. Jeff had woken up to a huge thundercrack and his power going out, and stumbling around in the dark for a flashlight, he’d heard Alice whimpering in a corner of the living room, under his coffee table. The rain had pounded on the roof, winds so strong you could hear branches sway and groan in the wind, and thundercracks echoed every few seconds, following bright flashes of light across the windows.

As calmly and gently as he could, Jeff had walked over to the little table beside the couch and sat down, singing softly to her and saying her name. She had been too afraid of the storm to run from him, and he’d slowly reached out a hand and placed it on her back. She’d shuddered in fear at the touch, but she was already trembling from the storm, and she didn’t break away. Jeff had begun to stroke her fur softly, trying to calm her down. Eventually, to both of their surprise, it had worked. Alice had crawled out from under the table, whimpering, and put her head in his lap while he stroked it. The storm had gone on for hours, and eventually Jeff had just pulled some cushions and a throw blanket off the couch and set up shop with Alice on the floor, playing Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest, and Rage Against the Machine on his phone.

After that night, the two of them had been inseparable. Alice had loved him, following him everywhere. She was a curious dog, and sometimes her methods of exploration caused trouble for him, but Jeff loved her. As she got more comfortable being allowed to do things, she would hop up with her front paws on high surfaces to sniff things—especially if they were things like albums or dvds Jeff had been using earlier, and she often ended up knocking those things on the floor. She would also come try to hop up in his lap while he worked, which made it really hard to do graphic design, and also she was a little too big to fit in a lap easily, but Jeff didn’t care. He loved her as much as she loved him, and it made him overflowingly happy he’d been able to see this dog who’d snarled and hid from him and left a scar on the back of his hand jump up on the door and scratch at it and cry every time he was in the bathroom too long. Jeff was never sure if she actually liked his heavy metal tastes, or if she just accepted them as a thing that happened, but he liked to think she enjoyed it. After seeing him thrash a few times with friends, Alice had started to jump and fling around in uncoordinated circles with him whenever he danced or thrashed to music. Jeff had never been happier.

“Dear God, how have you been then?  I'm not fine, fuck pretending. All of this death you’re sending, best throw some free heart mending,” Jeff whispered to himself, running a hand over the back of a seat in an old resort he knew well, “Invite you in my heart, then when done, my sins forgiven? This God of mine relaxes. World dies, I still pay taxes. Can I be as my God am?”

He stopped singing. “Ormond again,” he whispered, letting go of the old chair, “Why do you keep bringing me here? What do you want?”

Jeff didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. This place? Hell, maybe? _I have to be dead,_ thought Jeff, _There can’t be any other explanation, can there? Dead and in hell. Or purgatory, if I’m lucky._ Funny, because he wasn’t really sure he’d ever believed in either.

Everything had been normal. Just life, just work, just…and then this place? He’d gone here—to this lodge, to look at his old mural. The memory was still frighteningly fresh, even though Jeff felt like he had to have been here for at least a couple of weeks. He’d walked up to the wall, the big, dripping letters, and placed his hand on it. He could still feel the rough fibers, the old paint. His first paying gig as an artist. It was beautiful to him.

And then something had happened. The wood around his fingertips had given way like it wasn’t solid, and his hand had sunk into the mural. He’d caught himself with his left hand and tried to pull his arm out, but something on the other side had closed around his fingers and jerked him forward, slamming his body up against the wall. It hurt; it had knocked the breath out of him, and Jeff had struggled as hard as he could to tear free of it, but the wall had given way around him and pulled him inside, turning black and smokey around him, enveloping him in something dark and thick that had gotten in his lungs and his hair and his eyes, and then he’d come gasping up out of it like he’d broken the surface on a pool, fighting through the muck to reach something solid, and he’d found something and dragged himself onto it, and when he’d wiped the muck out of his eyes he’d seen a forest. No tar or mud or whatever the hell it had been anywhere. Just solid ground beneath his feet, grass blowing in the breeze, trees overhead. It hadn’t even been on his jacket anymore, and he’d watched the inky black substance as it faded from his hands until it was like it had never been at all.

Disoriented, Jeff had gotten up and tried to get his bearings. This wasn’t the kind of forest he should have been in. No snow, no lodge. It felt like a different time of year. Going slow, Jeff had tried to find a way out, periodically checking his quickly dying phone for service.

He hadn’t found anything. Not even a building. The forest had gone on for miles and miles, but he never seemed to get anywhere. And then he’d felt light-headed and when his vision had cleared, he’d looked up and he’d been here—in Ormond again. Jeff had been so relieved he’d almost passed out from it, laughing at himself, and also a little worried about what potential underlying medical issue could have caused him to hallucinate like that.

It had taken Jeff several minutes to realize something was off about the lodge, through his relief. He’d been so tired, all he’d wanted to do was find his way back to his car, call Akins and ask how Alice was doing, drive back to his dad’s place and sleep. But there had been no car. No ski lift. He’d seen someone then. A young person—maybe even a teenager, by the build.

Jeff had thought _I’m still seeing things. I need to get to a hospital, fast,_ and he’d called out to them. “Hey—sorry, I’m a little lost. I don’t know if you can help me?”

The teenager had hesitated, then turned to face him. A young girl, short brown hair, but it had been too dark for him to make out anything beyond that.

“Sorry,” Jeff had said, knowing it probably wasn’t super fun to be approached by some random large man in his late thirties out here at night in the middle of nowhere, “I think something’s wrong with me—I might be having a stroke. Do you have service?”

The girl had hesitated, then walked over towards him.

“Thanks, I’m—” Jeff couldn’t remember anymore if he’d been going to apologize or tell her his name or mention he was looking for his car, because the girl had closed the last seven feet with a mad lunge and buried a knife in his stomach.

Jeff had stood there, body twitching as it went into shock, and she’d dug the blade in deeper, twisting it and tearing at his intestines. He’d screamed and fallen back, landing hard on the snow behind him.

The girl had stood over him and leaned in close, smiling, and let the knife slice lightly at the edge of his face. Then she’d straightened up and pulled out a mask.

“W-wait,” Jeff had said, clutching at the hole in him, “Please, you can have my money and my keys. I won’t call the cops—It’s so dark I don’t even really know what you look like. You have no reason to kill me.”

The mask was white, with two big eyes and a smile and a smear of blood across it, and Jeff shuddered looking up at it as the girl tilted her head. She moved and straddled his chest, sitting down on his stomach just below the knife wound, which sent wave after wave of pain up his body. She fiddled with the knife in her hands, relishing his fear and pain and the power she held over him in the moment. Then she raised the knife above her head with both hands, poised to bring it down into his chest.

“Please—” Jeff had begged, desperate, “My dad just died and I’ve got a dog back home.”

The girl brought the knife down into his chest with a little cry, and Jeff felt pain shoot out from his chest as she ripped a deep gash from his collar bone to his belly, cutting him open like a lab specimen. He had never felt anything so awful in his life and his body spasmed, trying to deal with it, and then he had died.

Jeff was so sure he had died. He’d felt it happen. It had been awful, and terrifying, and lonely, and then he’d been back. He’d been standing by some campfire, and for a moment he’d expected some tall shrouded skeleton with a scythe to step out of the shadows and welcome him to the other side, but nothing had happened. He’d just been alone, in the shadows of a tall forest, by a fire.

That had been a few weeks ago. Since then, Jeff had come to understand some things. This place—it was like a bad time loop. You could die in hundreds of horrible ways, and you did, but you always came back to the fire. The fire was a reprieve—a temporary safe space, but it wasn’t an exit. It was the kennel you were kept in before being thrown out into a dog fighting ring amidst cheering and leering viewers, shouts and broken bottles. He’d wondered if this was how Alice had felt.

The campfire was temporary. After a breather, you would be dragged into some little arena. A small area with a fence around it, and as far as he could see looking over a fence once after climbing a tree, nothing past the fence. It just…dropped off into smoke and nothingness, like the edge of a videogame level, or a dream. When you were in the arena, there would always be something hunting you. What was after you changed, although most of the time it seemed like it was the first girl he’d seen, or someone like her, but there was always one. There would be generators too. And you would need to repair five of them to open two huge gates. If you got a gate open, you could run out the exit and get back to your kennel—dog fight won. If you failed, you were either killed by the thing hunting you, or thrown up on a hook and killed by some alien, eldritch, Cthulhu thing un in the sky. It was always night time, no matter how many hours passed, and the arenas you went through these gladiatorial matches in sometimes looked similar to ones you’d seen before, but little things always changed.

Jeff had no idea why any of this was happening. What could something—anything—get from watching people die and then come back, over and over? Was it punishment for something? And if so, what on earth could he or any of the others here have done to be forced to endure so much suffering? Was it all just some sick entertainment halfway between gladiatorial combat and a fox hunt, run on a limited supply of gladiators and foxes? Was it something else? Could there really be some monster or demon or god powerful enough to make something like this who would make it just for the enjoyment of it?

It was a horrible thought.

During the time he’d been here, Jeff had wondered constantly if there was any way to get home. He’d tried—he’d looked constantly for any way out. He’d walked as far as he could—he always walked as far as he could after returning to the campfire. _There has to be an edge,_ he’d told himself, _This Truman Show shit, there has to be a place where you hit the sky. There has to be an end._  But he never found one. Worse, he knew it was because he was doing something fundamentally wrong. He could walk for hours, then turn around and be back at his campfire in minutes. It was disheartening.

The other thing Jeff had learned in the short time he’d been here that really mattered was that he wasn’t the only one.  

Not counting the hunters and the monsters, there were other people like him in here too. But they were all afraid of him. He didn’t know why—what he could possibly have done, but they ran from him. A few times he had managed to help one—grab them from a meat hook, and once he’d freed one from a bear trap. Sometimes they would give him a grateful look, but they always ran as soon as they were free to. Often, they didn’t even look at him. It wasn’t just that they were all cautious, or that there was some reason to keep distance, either. Sometimes Jeff saw two or three of them together on a generator, or trying to heal someone’s wounds. It was only him that they ran from.

Really, Jeff only wished that he knew why. He couldn’t think of anything he’d done to seem scary. And he tried, again and again, to get them to warm up to him, but they always left him behind. The most confusing part was that they would still help him, if he was in real trouble—if he was bleeding out on the ground, or up on a meat hook. For just a moment, there would be something like kinship and someone would be working with him, but the second he wasn’t on death’s door they would be gone again. And he would be left behind, confused, wondering what he’d done wrong.

 _It’s only been a few times,_ Jeff had told himself, _Maybe they’re just scared around any stranger._

Jeff probably should have been that way himself, after his experience with the girl the first night. Thinking that helped, but it was still painfully lonely. Everything was either trying to kill him, or afraid that he might kill them. Even though there were others like him, Jeff was alone.

Alone, and in Ormond again.

Well, in the little ceremonial gladiator ground that looked like Ormond.

 _Bet it means the girl again,_ thought Jeff, who had been killed or sacrificed _many_ times by her in Ormond. _That’s okay. Maybe I’ll make it this time,_ he told himself, moving across the room quietly towards a generator near the fireplace. Jeff had survived a trial only twice.

He got through the first three fourths of his generator in complete peace, which freaked him out. The resort building itself was pretty central to the arena, and he hadn’t even heard a heartbeat. _This is good,_ he told himself, but memories of almost shitting his pants after being yanked off a generator by some gigantic man in a white mask he hadn’t even remotely heard or seen coming were still pretty fresh in his head, and he kept casting nervous glances around. As soon as you thought you knew how something worked here, some new monster showed up to prove you wrong.

The generator was seconds from lighting when suddenly Jeff heard a thudding heartbeat—the sound that always came with these things, warning you they were getting close. It was coming in fast from directly opposite him, and Jeff let go of the generator and ran, spotting a little hallway nook around a corner and sliding into it. _Dead end, but there’s a windowsill,_ thought Jeff, hugging the far wall, _If anything comes round the corner, I’ll just hop out, and—_

Something hopped in. Flung in was more like it.

A small girl shot over the sill at incredible speed, pressing her back up against the wall and breathing hard. The heartbeat was almost on top of them, and she turned her head to peek back through the sill. Jeff heard another set of footsteps thudding against the soft earth outside as whatever was chasing the girl got close.

 _Shit,_ thought Jeff, _If it doesn’t find us, maybe I can finally talk to—_

Seeing her pursuer getting close, the girl turned away from the sill, holding her breath. Turned towards him for the first time, Jeff could suddenly see that she was wearing a white mask and holding a knife. And she saw him.

_Oh no._

There was nowhere to go. She was blocking the windowsill and the hallway. Jeff had never seen this one before—pink hair, crack down the middle of the mask, but she was definitely one of the set he kept finding here. Jeff pressed his back to the far wall, more to comfort himself than in any hope that would actually do anything useful. The one eye of the pink haired girl’s he could see through the crack in her mask stared at him, dumbfounded.

_Wait, if she’s the hunter, what’s she running from? Is there an even worse thing that hunts them?_

Outside the windowsill, Jeff saw movement, but he couldn’t make out who or what was out there from his angle. Whatever it was turned and looked around. He heard a voice that sounded like a girl’s whisper “Susie? Susie, where did you go? Come back—it’s only me.”

The pink haired girl looked nervously over her shoulder, her own back still pressed against the wall too, and then looked at Jeff and made the motion for zipping lips shut, pointed at him with the knife, and then used it to make a slicing motion by her neck.

That was pretty easy to translate, and Jeff nodded, swallowing nervously. He mimicked the motion, zipping his lips. The pink haired girl looked back towards the windowsill.

“Come on,” said the female voice outside, “Why are you running away? I just want to talk to you. Please?” After a few more seconds, the person outside moved on. Jeff heard her say “I have something for you,” in a voice that sounded genuinely sad as she got close to being out of his range of hearing.

The pink haired girl with the mask waited a few more seconds to make sure whoever had been outside was gone, then peeked out through the windowsill and gave a huge sigh of relief. She turned her attention back to Jeff then. He put up his hands.

“I don’t want to cause you any trouble,” he whispered, even though he was pretty sure it was going to be futile, “You don’t have to kill me.”

The girl made an unhappy sound in her throat. She edged towards him a little and then hesitated. She let out another sigh. “Two seconds,” she hissed.

“What?” asked Jeff, astounded that she’d spoken to him at all, and thoroughly confused at what she meant.

“I can’t let you go,” hissed the pink haired girl, “But you take orders, so to be fair I’m going to let you past me and then give you a two second head start. You better go though, before I change my mind and stop feeling so generous,” she added, motioning for him to go past her.

Nervously, Jeff edged past her until he was on the side facing the hall. “Thank you. I—”

“—Two seconds starting now, I’m not kidding,” whispered the girl, “You better run.”

“Okay,” said Jeff hurriedly, taking off. _Can’t?_ thought Jeff, rounding the hallway corner and running for an open doorway leading to the area outside. He was almost to the door when he heard the pink haired girl tearing through the room behind him, gaining ground. Somewhere in the distance, two generators lit at almost the exact same time, from opposite ends of the area. Jeff took off towards neither, not wanting to endanger anyone else stuck here with him. He was close to a row of walls he might be able to lose her in when he felt her lunge forward and ram her elbow into his back, her knife digging through the muscle at his shoulder. He cried out and stumbled, still not anything like used to this, and she was on him again before he’d made it even ten feet, swinging wildly. The knife dug into an arm as he tried to shield himself, and then slashed across his chest before finally digging in deep in his right side as she threw herself on top of him, knocking them both to the ground.

Jeff lay there, breathing hard and with some difficulty, feeling blood drain too fast from the hole in his side. _I’m going to die again,_ he thought with horror, body trembling as it went into shock and tried weakly to keep functioning.

Above him, the pink haired girl was breathing just as hard, knife still stuck in his side. With one yank she tore it free, and he cried out as the sharp, ripping pain of having the blade removed shot through him.

Her own arms shaking a little, the pink haired girl wiped the blade on her arm and reached down to pick him up. They were right by one of the awful meat hooks.

“S-Susie,” he said weakly remembering what the person she’d been hiding from had said, “You don’t have to do this.”

She stopped, staring at him in surprise through the crack in her mask when she heard her name. He heard her hiss “Fucking Meg,” to herself, almost inaudibly, then she took a deep breath and picked him up. Jeff couldn’t understand how someone so much smaller than him could lift him so easily, but she did, hefting him above her head and ramming him through the hook above them. He screamed, body shaking with pain as the huge chunk of metal ripped through him and held him up.

“Susie!”

It was the same voice from before, and Jeff and the pink haired girl both looked to see a red haired girl Jeff thought he might have seen once before standing opposite them, at the edge of the little walled area.

“Shit,” whispered the pink haired girl, then louder she said, “Get out of here, or I’ll chase you and kill you too. I’m not kidding.”

“If I let you kill me, will you let that guy go?” asked the redhead, pointing at Jeff and looking utterly unphased.

“What?” said the pink haired girl.

“What?” said Jeff.

They looked at each other, then back at the redhead. _Is she crazy? The—this girl’ll just kill us both. What are you doing, kid, you don’t even know me._

“For all of us, we have to be alone between trials unless we meet someone else and leave together,” said Meg, “And we haven’t been able to get him yet. Actually we’ve been—nevermind, another story, but sorry,” she said to Jeff, then turned back to the pink haired girl, “Anyway, we’re a group right now except him, but if one of us leaves with him—”

“You’re asking me to let _two_ of you go?” asked the pink haired girl, incredulous.

“I mean, I would say that I’m probably worth a two-for-one deal,” offered the redhead, grinning.

 _What the hell is going on,_ thought Jeff through the overwhelming pain in his shoulder. He had never seen anyone act remotely like this in a match, and more than that, he couldn’t figure out under what hypothetical circumstances someone would. Even talking period seemed taboo to predator and prey alike before this, and they were negotiating now. In a familiar manner.

“No,” snapped the pink haired girl, pointing her knife at the other girl, “You’re out of your mind. Now get lost, or you’re dead.”

“Can I at least trade myself for him?” asked the redhead, looking downcast and speaking a little more quietly.

The pink haired girl looked at Jeff. “Why?” she asked angrily, turning back to the other girl.

“Because he’s new,” said the redhead, “And that’s rough.”

The pink haired girl was silent for a moment. “You can unhook him,” she said after a second, “Because of last time. But then we’re square. And if I see him again, he’s fair game.”

The redhead nodded, and the pink haired girl moved aside and let her walk over to the hook. “Sorry,” said the redhead, looking up at Jeff, “I know this hurts.”

She tore him free, and it did, but he was still reeling too much from things he’d heard to really register all of that. His feet hit the ground and his knees buckled under a strain he wasn’t used to yet, but the redhead caught him and held him steady.

“Who are you?” he asked through the pain coursing through him, hand desperately trying to slow the bleeding in his chest, “Why are you doing this for me?”

“I’m Meg,” said the redhead. _Oh right,_ thought Jeff, _‘Fucking Meg.’ Makes sense._ “I’m stuck here like you, but I’ve been here a little longer. There’s two other people in the trial with us, a little girl named Claudette and tall man named Adam. They’re both nice, so if you can find one, they’ll help you.”

“But you’re,” Jeff hesitated, still trying to process everything, “You’re going to let her kill you?” _I can’t let a kid do that. This girl’s maybe twenty._

“It’s cool,” said the redhead, “I know it’s confusing, but we’re friends. I’ll be okay, but,” Meg leaned in to whisper, “She’s kind of bratty, so if you don’t go she might get pissy and stab you again. You better get moving.”

Meg gave him a gentle shove, encouraging him to get going. Confused and a lost, Jeff backed up, staring at the two girls opposite him, the redhead smiling encouragingly like she wasn’t afraid at all, and the pink haired one with a knife almost pouting, arms folded, toot tapping the ground in agitation.

Jeff turned and ran, but he didn’t go far. He’d only made it a few yards before his conscience hit him. _Jeffery, man, what are you doing?_ he chided himself, _It doesn’t matter what the crazy girl says, you can’t let a kid die like that. You have to go back._

He stopped for a second, mind in agreement with his conscience but needing a minute to convince his legs, hands still trying to keep pressure on his shoulder. Not too far away, another generator lit. _Two left,_ thought Jeff. _Come on,_ he added, thumping a leg in irritation, _Quit stalling. You have to help that kid._

Jeff went back slowly, creeping low to the ground. He didn’t actually have a plan—try to help her escape, just offer to undo the trade, try to fight the girl with the knife?—and that being the case, he decided to approach with as much caution as he could leaking blood all over the place.

As he got close, he could hear them talking.

“You can’t do this to me!” It was the pink haired girl’s voice. “I _have_ to kill you guys, or I’m in serious shit. Don’t come in here expecting me to be nice to you because of last time.”

“I know, I get it,” said Meg’s voice, in the tone of someone who’d heard the person they were talking to repeat themselves more than a few times already, “I’m sorry. Honest.”

“How many people did you tell!” snapped the other girl.

Jeff edged closer, getting near enough to be able to see them through a gap between the walls, safely behind a boulder himself.

“Just two,” said Meg.

“Wait, really?” asked the pink haired girl, who had definitely been ready to shout at her.

“Yeah, I mean, I sort of get the position you’re in,” said Meg, “I didn’t want to make it a living hell. Were you okay after last time?”

“Yeah,” said the pink haired girl a little less venomously, “It was fine. I mean, not _great,_ but.”

“Okay, well, I’m glad,” said the redhead, smiling at the girl in the mask. Jeff couldn’t see the other girl’s face, but she shook her head and her posture read disbelieving.

“I gotta put you on the hook now,” said the pink haired girl, sounding a little unhappy about it.

“Okay,” said Meg, surrendering easily.

“No—stop it!” snapped Susie, “Don’t just give in! Run away from me, like you mean it. You’re supposed to be scared of me!”

“But I’m not,” said Meg, holding out her arms noncombatively, “I kind of like you.”

“Shut up!” said the pink haired girl, closing the distance between them and waving her knife in the other girl’s face, “You don’t get to like me! Don’t you understand?”

“I do,” said Meg, not backing up, “It’s shitty. But you can’t make me not like you.”

The pink haired girl let out an agitated, muffled scream and swung her knife at the other girl, slicing open her cheek. Jeff flinched.

Meg stood there, unmoving, blood dripping down the side of her face. Susie was breathing quick opposite her, knife still raised.

“Run away!” she hissed, “Or I’ll kill you too.”

“I don’t want to run away,” said Meg, “I want to be friends.”

“You don’t understand!” said Susie, tone hushed and harsh, “That’s not going to happen. There are bad things you don’t even know about. We can’t be friends, and we _shouldn’t_ be friends. We can’t be friends.”

“We could try,” said Meg, holding out a hand towards the other girl.

Susie looked at the hand, then back into the other girl’s face, hesitating. “Meg,” she said finally, “I’m only gonna say this one more time. You run away, right now, or I’m going to kill you.”

The other girl looked sad, deeply, but a little bit hopeful too. She didn’t run. She just stood there, trying to hold Susie’s gaze.

Susie made a furious sound deep in her throat and then suddenly lashed out, stabbing clean through the outstretched hand. She tore the blade free and Meg fell back, holding the hand, but not moving.

“Run!” snapped Susie.

Meg didn’t.

Susie swung the blade at her, and Meg held still, braced, eyes closed. The girl in the mask didn’t stop. She brought her knife down in a long gash down the redhead’s arm, then swung it around and dug it into the other girl’s thigh. Meg’s leg buckled, but she didn’t move.

“Run!” shouted Susie again, voice furious.

Meg looked up into her face, expression pleading and hurt.

The pink haired girl raked the knife across the other girl’s chest, relentless, then stood above her, Meg on her knees. “Run!”

Meg shook her head.

Susie angrily sliced the knife against her other cheek, carving a nearly matching line across it.

 _You gotta go—you gotta move; she’s going to kill her,_ Jeff told himself, breaking the trance he’d been under watching the scene unfold.

“Run!” screamed Susie, voice full of anger, but tinged with something else now too. Almost like she was crying.

Looking up into her face, Meg shook her head again, her own eyes glossy. Susie made a furious sound and brought the knife down into Meg’s gut, deep. Body trembling on its own now, Meg reached up a hand and grabbed Susie’s shoulder and tugged her down onto her knees too, knife still embedded in Meg’s stomach, and pulled the other girl against her chest.

Jeff’s dash had been slowed by his injuries, but he was close—right on the other side of the wall they were behind, ready to try to intervein and only about three feet away. But he stopped.

The pink haired girl stayed on her knees, unmoving, and the redhead held her tight, slowly resting her head against the other girl’s chest.

“Please,” whispered the pink haired girl after a second, voice cracking, “I can’t do this.”

The redhead was breathing shallowly, and she closed her eyes, resting against her attacker, arm keeping her close, refusing to break the hug.

“We can’t be friends,” said Susie, sounding like she might be crying beneath the mask, “You don’t understand what will happen.”

Watching them, Jeff wondered if maybe the redhead used to be one of the kids in the masks, and she’d given them up to be one of the things they hunted.

“You can’t stop me,” said Meg, almost gently, eyes still closed but smiling, “I think you’re not as bad as you act. I’m not going to give up on you.”

“Why?” asked the pink haired girl, “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you want to be friends too,” said the other girl weakly. Jeff could see the blood leaking down the front of her jersey onto her knees. “And that you’re good, deep down. That’s enough for me.”

Movements not something that could be called gentle, but much slower and less harsh than before, the pink haired girl in the mask pried herself free of the other girl’s grasp and laid her on the ground on her back, then pulled the knife free of her stomach. Meg cried out when she did, and Susie looked at her, hesitating for just a moment. Then she looked at the meat hook above them.

“You’re wrong about me,” said Susie, still on her knees, looking back down at Meg, “I’m not good deep down.”

She reached down to pick the other girl up, and Meg grabbed her wrist.

“Wait,” said Jeff, stepping out from behind the wall he’d been hiding by.

Susie looked up at him and tilted her head back in exhaustion and frustration.

“I told you you were dead,” said Susie, pointing her knife at him.

“I know, I remember,” said Jeff, one hand clutching his chest and the other up noncombatively, “But you and your friend here really seem like you don’t want to do this. What if you take me back instead?”

Susie looked from him, to Meg, then back again. “You know, I really fucking hate all of you,” she muttered angrily, “And what if I just kill you both, huh?” she said, louder.

“But you don’t want to,” said Jeff.

“You don’t want to kill either of us,” agreed Meg from the ground, eyes closed.

“Yes I do!” snapped Susie, “I want to kill you both!”

Jeff must have lost count somewhere, because as another generator went on back over by the lodge, he heard the sound that meant the exit gates were up.

“Fuck!” said Susie. Almost impossibly fast, she closed the distance between herself and him, and Jeff barely had time to wonder how she’d suddenly gotten so quick before her knife stabbed him in the chest.

Jeff felt like he’d been stuck by a bolt of lighting. Pain shot through the cut that couldn’t have been that deep with so much force he expected to be flung backwards, but instead he just hit the ground, body convulsing for a second with the pain. He wasn’t even fully aware of what was happening before Susie had him lifted above her head and brought him down hard onto a hook. That hurt every bit as much as the knife had, and he convulsed again, feeling like he was being electrocuted. _What the fuck? What the—fucking--How did she…_

It was hard to see through the red and black spots in his vision, but Susie turned towards Meg and muttered, “I’ll be back for you,” and then took off, heading towards one of the gates.

Around Jeff, he saw the awful claw things start to burn into existence, and he knew that in a second he would be struggling against them.

“Sorry,” he heard Meg say from the ground, “I think I fucked this up for you.”

“It’s oka—ah!” said Jeff, catching a talon as it tried to impale him, and struggling against it. “Thanks for trying, kid,” he managed, fighting to hold back the claw at his chest, “I don’t think I did much either.”

In the distance, they heard a scream as someone else went down, and then up on a hook.

“She got another one?” asked Meg.

Jeff tried to look. They were far away, but he could just barely make out outlines through the fog. As he watched, the man on the hook tore himself free and hit the ground.

“Yeah,” said Jeff, “But somehow he got himself free.”

“Heh, she got Adam,” said Meg, smiling, eyes still closed and breathing shallow. “Sorry,” she added after a second, “That we’ve all been avoiding you. We were scared.” She cracked an eye open then, trying to see him from where she was.

“Did I--do something?” managed Jeff, still mostly concentrated on not being killed by the claws trying to snap him in half.

“No,” said Meg quietly, “It’s complicated. But we aren’t scared of you now. I think we’re both dead this time, but we’ll get you in the next one.”

“Okay,” said Jeff, feeling insurmountably better with that promise and these incredibly strange fifteen minutes of human interaction. Looking down at the kid bleeding to death on the ground, he felt bad too though. _It’s my own fault,_ thought Jeff, _For getting caught. And not coming back fast enough._ He still remembered every single death he’d experienced here. They were all fresh—a countable number. And all of them had been scary, and painful, and lonely. Even though he’d known he would come back.

“She’s really not so bad,” said Meg, eyes closed again, “I think she’s just scared. But I’m not good at figuring out how to get someone to trust you.”

“It’s hard,” agreed Jeff, no real idea what was going on, but thinking of Alice and the scar on the back of his hand and the hole through Meg’s. “Hey, kid,” he said after a second, “She can probably hear us.”

“Yeah?” said Meg, opening her eyes again.

“You know ‘November Rain?’” he asked.

“Guns n’ Roses?” asked Meg.

Jeff smiled for the first time since he’d been stuck in this place, nodding. She looked up at him and met his gaze, and an understanding passed between them. She smiled too.

“When I look into your eyes,” sang Jeff slowly, waiting for her to join in.

“I can see a love restrained,” sang Meg softly, catching up, “But darlin' when I hold you, don’t you know I feel the same?”

“Nothin' lasts forever,” sang Jeff with her, and their voices mixed and exploded with new volume, “And we both know hearts can change. And it's hard to hold a candle in the cold November rain.”

“We've been through this such a long, long time, just tryin' to kill the pain,” sang Meg, matching him easily, and with all the enthusiasm and power Jeff knew could only come from someone who truly loved the song they were singing out, “Ooo yeah. But love is always coming, and love is always going, and no one's really sure who's lettin' go today! Walking away. If we could take the time to lay it on the line, I could rest my head, just knowin' that you were mine!”

“All mine,” they sang together, “So if you want to love me, then darlin’ don’t refrain.”

Off in the distance, they could hear some kind of commotion by the exits. Jeff wondered if the other two would make it out. He hoped they would. He hoped this girl was right about the kid in the mask and got what she wanted. He hoped she was right and they’d find him next time and he wouldn’t be all alone here. He hoped he would find some way back, and that Alice somehow understood why he was gone, and that he would never have deserted her.

“Or I'll just end up walkin' in the cold November rain.”

Jeff lost his struggle, and one of the claws shot through him, tearing the life from him as he struggled to stay for the girl dying on the ground. “Do you need some time on your own,” he managed, Meg singing the words with him, looking up at him, holding there together as long as they could.  

Then he was lost, and she was on her own, watching what was left of him taken up into the sky. Leaving her behind. Alone.

“Do you need some time all alone, everybody needs some time on their own,” sang Meg more quietly, watching his husk fade into nothing, feeling silent tears slide down her face. “Don't you know you need some time all alone,” she continued voice husky, then picked up volume on her own again until she was almost screaming out into the night, “I know it's hard to keep an open heart, when even friends seem out to harm you, but if you could heal a broken heart, wouldn't time be out to charm you?”

Meg had thought Susie would come back. To kill her, or to hook her, or maybe to say something even. But she didn’t. And Meg realized suddenly that she wasn’t going to make it long enough to see her again. She was almost out of time.

“Sometimes I need some time on my own. Sometimes I need some time all alone,” sang Meg with as much strength as she had left, letting go of the hole in her stomach to hold her bloody hand up towards the sky, just to be able to see it. “Everybody needs some time on their own. Don't you know you need some time all alone?”

There was no response, no movement or sound or presence or promise that another person was there at all, but she called out to the girl who was somewhere out there in the night. Not giving up.

“And when your fears subside,” sang Meg softly, suddenly having a hard time breathing, “and shadows still remain, oh yeah, I know that you can love me, when there's no one left to blame. So,” she stopped, not having the breath to keep going, struggled, and tried again hard, choking on blood in her throat, “So never mind the darkness. We can…We still can find a way.” She felt herself going cold and she was starting to lose consciousness. But she was so close to finishing the song, and she wanted to, just in case Susie was out there somewhere, listening. “'Cause nothin'…lasts…forever,” whispered Meg, eyes finally shutting for the last time, “Even…”

Meg died, blood pooling around her in the snow, last breath fogging in the night air, final lyrics of a song not quite on her lips.

Watching from where she’d stopped a few feet away in the shadow of a tree, Susie stood, unable to get closer. She waited in the darkness until the trial started to fade around her, and she knew the last person was truly, finally gone.

“Cold November rain,” sang Susie quietly, as everything vanished around her.

There was more to the song after that, darker, more frantic. No one was there to finish the song, but the chants filled her head with shadows as she disappeared from the trial grounds, burying her. _You're not the only one. You're not the only one._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The band Jeff mentions naming his dog after is Alice in Chains, which began in the late 80s, but dropped their album "Alice in Chains," which features a three-legged dog on the cover, in 1995--right about the time Jeff made his first ever paid work of art. "November Rain" is a particularly beautiful Guns N' Roses song from 1991 which is more of a power ballad than their usual hard rock and heavy metal, but does feature a more intense rock section as its finale after the ballad ends. As for Alice herself, it's pretty common for dog fighting dogs who fail and are injured to be either brutally killed in front of the audience as part of the sport, or dumped somewhere because they are no longer useful. Psychological and emotional trauma can be as difficult for dogs to move past as it is for humans, but aggression and fear can be unlearned for them as well. It's only unfortunate for her that, unlike humans, you can't really explain to a dog what has happened when someone goes missing. And I suppose a good thing for Jeff he wasn't around back when Meg did Homeward Bound...
> 
> Getting further in Act II now. Got some threads to tie down, and a decent bit of action coming up soon that I'm looking forward to writing, as well as a little time for Adam and Tapp, who haven't gotten their fair share yet. I hope you all enjoyed more with Susie and Meg, and of course Jeff. More to come there as well. Thanks to everyone who reads, comments, and leaves kudos--again, you all really are incredible, and it means a lot to me!


	34. Tenacity, Adrenaline, and Grit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tapp tries to get used to existence in the Entity's realm. Meg has a trial that pushes her to the limit. Susie has regrets.

“Okay people, quiet!” Shouted Kerry.

“Quiet!” echoed Sing, banging his beer down on the table.

No one was quiet. They cheered instead. Beside him, Eric broke off mid-sentence and raised a mug, joining in the uproar. All around the bar, people beat their hands against the counter or whistled, adding to the joyous excitement.

“Quiet!” Kerry tried again, losing it and starting to laugh halfway through the word.

“Come on guys,” said Eric beside him, taking a huge swig of his beer mid-sentence, “Let the woman speak!”

“Woo!” added Sing in way of backing him up.

“We are here,” said Kerry over the uproar, “To celebrate a very special day for us all.”

People started shouting and drumming their hands against the table again and Kerry shook her head at them.

“Today’s the day we celebrate, officially, the lowest crime rate in the entire metropolitan area since 1980!” shouted Eric, raising his glass and letting it slosh over the side.

“1981!” corrected Sing, raising his beer.

“1981,” agreed Eric, drunkenly cheering.

“And, it is also a special day on the force,” said Kerry, turning towards him. Across the bar from her, Tapp grinned and tried futilely to hide under his collar. “Because we’re celebrating the birthday of a very special detective.”

“Woo!” shouted Sing again, slamming his partner on the shoulder.

“And,” continued Kerry, “Half of the team who brought in the King Street Wolf!”

“The other half was me!” called out Sing happily from beside him, already drunk.

“You all already know why we’re here,” continued Kerry, “But let’s make it official. Bring it on out!” she shouted, raising her own drink.

One of the bar staff appeared from the back, holding a birthday cake, lit with a mass of candles. His fellow officers cheered as the man brought it over, and most of them joined in a bad cacophony of “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you”s.

“Happy birthday dear David,” sang Sing amidst a mass of “Tapp”s and a few other “David”s. “Happy birthday to yoooou,” his friend finished with a drunken flourish, elbowing him to blow out the candles.

Grinning, Tapp shook his head and took a breath, then blew. He wished silently for another year just like this one, and he got every candle but one, which Eric leaned over and sympathetically pinched out, promising that was the same.

It was a good day. A happy one. 2005 had been a good year.

“The big 6-0,” said Eric, clinking his glass against Tapp’s.

“God, don’t remind me,” said Tapp unhappily, “Getting older just doesn’t get any easier, does it?”

“No,” said Sing, who was far too young to have that opinion, “It does not.” He took another drink from his beer, which was his fourth.

“Well,” said Kerry sitting down beside Eric, “Long as you can still do the job, what’s a number?”

“And you can, definitely, still do the job,” added Hoffman, sitting across from Eric at their little table.

“Got any plans for the rest of your big day?” asked Kerry.

“Kerry, I’m sixty. Birthdays aren’t big days any more. You try not to think about them,” said Tapp, smiling at her.

“I don’t buy into that,” said Kerry, taking a drink and a handful of pretzels, “Each year you live is an accomplishment. It ‘s always a big day—especially living in New Jersey.”

“Amen,” said Hoffman, clinking his glass against hers, then added, “Fuckin’ New Jersey,” under his breath.

“She’s right, you know,” said Sing, “We got a lot left. Good friends, fighting crime, crap apartments with no dry rot.”

Kerry and Eric clinked their glasses against his for ‘no dry rot’.

“You can’t think it’s all bad,” said Sing, turning to him, “Maybe even give Kara a call.”

“Kara hates me,” said Tapp, taking a sip of his own beer.

“She can’t hate you _that_ much, she married you, didn’t she?” asked Hoffman.

“Yeah, but she also un-married me,” said Tapp.

Hoffman grinned at him and tilted his beer in acknowledgment of the point.

“On your birthday, though,” said Sing, “Won’t hurt to say ‘hi.’”

“I’ll think about it,” said Tapp, smiling a little at the thought.

“Well, until then, you got a great party here,” said Kerry, “Food, drinks, I can’t think of a third thing, but…”

“Us,” offered Eric, mouth full of pretzels, “We’re here, and we’re pretty fun.”

“Well, we’re here anyway,” said Hoffman.

“Yeah,” said Sing, raising his beer, “To us. And to Tapp. World’s best partner.”

“You never even had another partner,” said Tapp, grinning at him.

“True, true,” said Sing, steadying himself a little, “But I know the other guys—and girls—down at the precinct. No offense Kerry.”

“We don’t get an apology?” asked Hoffman, glancing at Eric and then Sing.

“Nope,” said Sing, taking another swig.

Kerry laughed. “Okay. To us. To having half-decent people from work to celebrate with.”

“To more great years, catching badguys, and all of us living to our 60,” said Hoffman, raising his glass.

The others all met in a cheers, and drank to their health.

On his way out of the bar that night, Tapp had called Kara. She had picked up, and it hadn’t been warm, but it had been cordial, and that had been good enough for him. He’d also called his son, Michael. He hadn’t picked up, but Tapp had left a message anyway, and Michael had left him a much shorter one while Tapp was in the shower, wishing him a happy birthday. That was more than good enough.

It had been a good day, in the simple, happy, busy way that life so seldom was. Special, to him. And Tapp had gone to sleep feeling like he might not mind too much being sixty.

Less than a month passed before the first Jigsaw murder appeared on his desk.

Less than a year before Sing was dead.

Less than two before Tapp was bleeding to death on the floor of a dirty sewer tunnel, a bullet through his stomach.

 

He had failed everyone. That had been his last thought, bleeding out on the ground. He’d failed as a husband, as a father, as a detective. He’d let Stephen die. There were people, probably not far from him, that were going to be killed by the same person who had killed him. Because he’d failed to stop it. These torture-kills, targeting the most vulnerable people, were just going to keep happening. It had hurt. Guilt, fury. With himself, with the world.

That had been probably months ago now. When he’d sat up, suddenly uninjured in some strange wood, Tapp had thought that he was dead. And then, when he’d heard screams, he’d thought in some pathetically optimistic way that God was giving him a second chance. The opportunity to not fail someone for once.

But that wasn’t what this place was. It wasn’t death, and it wasn’t some second chance. It was a prison. It was like the traps he’d been investigating in the Jigsaw case, only it reset. You could fail or succeed to win your life, only to be thrown back again either way, over and over. The people he met here were innocent victims, forced to live through more pain than human beings really could, in an endless cycle. The cost was blood and trauma, and victory wasn’t an escape. It was eerily similar to him.

He’d tried, in his first trial, to fight someone.

It had been the one they called the Cannibal. The huge one with a chainsaw. Tapp had seen a girl, maybe in her 20s, running from him. They’d been in a forest type area with a large abandoned building in it, and Tapp had torn a board free of a windowsill it had been covering and run after them. The huge masked man with the chainsaw had cut the girl down in front of him, and Tapp had thought he’d been too late again when he heard her scream—thought she had to have been dead, and he’d brought the board down on the man’s head from behind with a scream, anger coursing through his body. The board had shattered on impact, like wood like that should never have done, and the man had turned on him as if the blow hadn’t even connected.

Tapp had been killed on a hook in that trial. Maybe two minutes after. He’d died the next time, and the next, and the next, on and on for so many trials he lost count. He kept trying to fight them, to protect the people here, to take the fight to the monster and the sick fuckers in masks, to kill the killers. But nothing he did mattered. He was powerless.

Old, and powerless, and a failure. Like before.

This world had taken some adjusting too. Tapp didn’t really think he’d ever be used to it. It wasn’t something he was built to accept. His drive for justice was strong, and his anger at these things with so much power who chose, over and over, to use that power to inflict suffering on others. Monsters. Disgusting beings. Sick fucks.

He got better at trials. He had finally met a stranger and talked with her—Kate. And finally, Tapp had lived through a trial. Made it out the exit, leaving three dead companions behind him. He’d hated that more than any trial he’d been killed in.

No matter how many times life spat in his face and showed him how powerless he was to save anyone, to beat anything, Tapp kept trying. He tried over and over, until there should have been nothing left. But there was no end for him. Tapp was a detective. He was a cop. He’d chosen this job because he wanted to save people, and he’d known it was rough. Fuck—he still had his badge on a chain around his neck. That wasn’t something he could just give up. So he tried.

Tapp ran into his worst nightmare again, some partner of the Jigsaw killer’s, here, and he’d died to reverse beartraps, the only person stuck in one who’d known what was going to happen before it had the first time.

He’d saved people from hooks, and bandaged cuts, and dropped pallets, and blinded killers, and run, and hid, and struggled, and died, and eventually, Tapp had met the others.

They’d brought him back to their camp, just in time to tell him they wanted to make friends with one of the monsters that ran around slaughtering them, and Tapp had thought they’d all lost their minds. There was nothing on this planet that could have a good excuse for relentlessly murdering innocent people. No matter what gun to their head, or larger picture.

He hadn’t liked Philip, and to be honest, he still wasn’t sure he trusted him. A killer, suddenly warming up to them? Turning out to be a person so surprisingly like they were? So easily sympathetic and willing to help, even at great expense to himself? It had felt like a trap.

But that had been a long time ago now. Whatever misgivings Tapp still had, and he did still have them, he had a hard time doubting Philip’s own sincerity. The man seemed so miserable most of the time, and as someone who had felt miserable for considerable chunks of his own life, Tapp felt like that would have been a pretty hard charade to fool him with. He was more worried about what might be going on that Philip _didn’t_ know. But then, that hardly mattered, did it? There was barely an inch of freedom or hope to stand on in this place anyway. What would he be protecting them from by getting rid of Philip? A return to the old normal? At least, even in a worst-case scenario, his friendship offered them some kind of fleeting hope. A reprieve, even if Tapp still couldn’t really believe it would be anything but a temporary one.

Everyone else had, predictably, decided after Philip that they might want to consider trying to talk to some of the other killers, which Tapp had been very, very against. He’d at least understood what Feng had been doing when she’d finally made an attempt with the Huntress—it had been more to save her friend than establish diplomacy. But now there was Meg.

Meg…

Meg had been one of the people who’d recruited him, and his first impression of her had been that she was incredibly loud and obnoxious. That still held true, but Tapp also had to admit that she was other things. Smart, caring—in her own way, quick (both mentally and physically), and able to do a damn good Bruce Willis impression. He had no idea why she’d latched onto him after a couple weeks and practically begged him to teach her some of his detective skills, and it had been a little annoying at first because the girl was flighty, smart-mouthed, and distractible, but he’d grown to like it, and her. He’d thought once absently that she was like the annoying daughter he’d never had, and immediately regretted that. His relationship with his son had been…less than stellar. If he’d had a daughter, it probably would have been the same. Like everything else in his life. For Tapp, it had been a constant struggle to find some kind of balance between his drive for justice, and everything else. That was a balance he’d never been able to find, and maybe worse, it was never one he had ever even really been able to feel bad about. Justice was something worth dying for. How was he ever supposed to feel like pursuing it was wrong?

His mess of a life aside, he really had no business thinking of her that way in the first place. Despite his continued effort, Tapp could barely do anything at all to help the people here. He was a long, long way from being in a position to protect, or nurture, or even mentor someone. In all honesty, Tapp wasn’t even sure that Meg was getting anything from the lessons he tried to pass on. She never seemed to be listening, even if she could remember things sometimes after—almost impossibly well, given the zoned out look she tended to have on her face. Even if he couldn’t do anything to really help her, though, she had him worried. For some reason, she’d taken a piece of advice and interpreted it as some kind of instruction to follow her heart, and run off to try and befriend one of the new killers on a hunch. It was a fucking nightmare. He knew she wasn’t going to be talked out of it. Meg wasn’t the kind of person to be talked out of anything. And who knew—maybe she wasn’t wrong. She seemed happy about it. But she was way too reckless. The girl acted tough, but Tapp thought he recognized the kind of person she was. The kind of person who acted like they had it handled and stayed tough until the bitter end, which meant you never knew they needed help until it was at least almost too late to do shit about it. The kind of person who learned young how to suffer, and was good at it. Good at living through it, fighting through it, and fighting things around them to protect themselves and the people they cared about.

Reminded him in ways of Alison Kerry and Eric Matthews. Kerry’s undeterrable passion and quick-adapting intelligence, Matthew’s brand of loneliness and ability to channel his fury into a truly incredible, nearly unstoppable determination when really pushed. If Tapp had been willing to think about it, there would have been other things she’d have reminded him of too, and more. But he wasn’t.

Getting to know all of the others was a strange process. Tapp had spent the past maybe forty years amongst mostly only other people who shared his job. There was so much more than he’d been used to. Of course, he’d seen all types of people in his job. But it was behind a notebook, or a table, or the barrel of a gun. He didn’t _know_ them. And damn, everyone here but Adam and Ace and maybe David and Kate if you pushed it were kids. He had to relearn how to relate to them.

Tapp had to relearn how to do everything.

It was almost funny, when he thought about it, that he was stuck in here with one of Jigsaw’s partners, and he still didn’t know who she was. Been close enough to rip that pig mask off maybe thirty times now, but that was as futile as everything else here.

Not that it would have mattered anyway.

As much as he still wanted to be a cop, protect everyone, stop badguys, fix things, he couldn’t. That didn’t stop Tapp from trying—not even being discharged had stopped Tapp, why should this? But it was hard. Failure. Again, and again, like before. Only now it was worse than before, because this was constant, utter failure, stacking on top of old wounds that had never healed, an unending reminder of everything he wasn’t and hadn’t been. Living wasn’t treading water anymore. It was drowning.

For better or worse, though, Tapp had never understood giving in.

 

* * *

 

 

_Again? Really? Ormond, again?_ thought Meg unhappily. It wasn’t that she hated this place—it just felt like bad luck. The reason for that was that after her last trial with Legion, she’d had one trial at Coldwind Farm, and then three more here—Spirit, Nurse, Doctor. And she’d been sacrificed in all three. It felt like a nasty rut. _Shake it off, Meg, you’re not bad at surviving here. It was just some bad luck, and then the Doctor, who. Well, let’s be honest Meg, you almost never survive against him. He’s your kryptonite. Fucking electroshock motherfucker, can’t chase people or find them for shit so he had to become a walking AOE taser just to know where we are._

It wasn’t great, though, and it hadn’t escaped Meg that it had been a steady downward spiral here. Spirit, to Nurse, to Doctor. _If it’s the fucking Nightmare or the Pig, I quit. Why can’t I be one of the people who gets a Philip trial? It isn’t fair!_

About two-thirds through her internal rant, Meg had found a generator by a tree, not too far from the outside of the decrepit lodge, and she hunkered down beside it and started working.

In the distance, she heard a shout almost immediately as someone got attacked, then another, then another.

“Damn,” whispered Meg, looking in the direction of the screams, “Were you all working the same gen?”

No one went down though, not for another sixty-five seconds, and Meg lit her generator and took off for what she could see of another one, behind some walls nearby. When she got close to it, she heard a quiet sound of pain in a voice she recognized. “Ace?” she asked under her breath, looking for him. As she rounded the corner, she saw him working on the generator, a long slice down his side leaking blood. “Dude!” said Meg in a harsh whisper, “You’re supposed to patch yourself up before doing this.”

“I was asleep,” whispered Ace, smiling up at her as she joined him, “Didn’t wake up to grab stuff for the trial, so I don’t have anything to patch it up with on me.”

“You could have looked for one of us,” said Meg, pulling a length of thread out of a pouch on her belt and moving to suture.

“And left all the work to you while I wandered around?” replied Ace, pausing his work on the generator to let her stitch him up, “What do you say, Meg? We work together and this one is done in no time.”

“Sure,” said Meg, tugging the thread taught and tying it off, then joining him at the generator.

“Legion, by the way,” said Ace, answering the question she hadn’t thought to ask, “Either the first one or the third one—one of the guys. If I’m honest, I split like a bat out of hell without lookin’ too hard.”

“Got it,” said Meg, nodding.

Almost two seconds went by before they heard a heartbeat fast approaching.

“What the fuck! How does he always find us so fast?” hissed Meg, letting go of the generator with great remorse, because it was about seventy percent of the way finished.

Ace quickly pointed her in one direction, then took off in another himself. Meg followed the instruction, booking it away from Ace so their pursuer would only be able to chase one of them. She heard Ace’s voice cry out in pain with a mixture of worry and relief, followed by a wave of guilt at the relief, and then a tinge of fear as she realized that the Legion had seen her too, and he was coming after her now.

_God damn it, bitch always likes to stab everyone and finish no one off until endgame. I get more cuts this way,_ thought Meg, running towards the lodge.

She leapt a sill leading into the main area, and he swung at her, slicing at one of her braids in a near-miss, and then leapt the sill behind her. It was the first Legion they’d seen. Meg was faster in a sprint, but he was faster in everything else, and her initial burst of speed was running out. She tore around a corner, vaulted an old sofa, and shot through an open doorway, back into the snow outside, and behind her the Legion rounded the same bend and dug the knife into her back, sending her reeling forward. Meg changed course, turning up the external staircase and dropping a palled behind her to bar his way, which he just vaulted. _Ah, fuck, I always forget they do that,_ thought Meg unhappily, trying to focus on her anger over the pain in her back.

She turned back inside the lodge, and down the inside staircase, Legion right behind her. He lunged and she ducked, and he went flying over her shoulders and hit the ground at the landing hard, and Meg flinched sympathetically on impulse, because it looked painful as fuck. He made an angry sound in his throat and got right back up though, chasing her back up the stairs as she turned on her heels. She was almost to the top when his fingers closed around her ankle and dragged her back, pulling her down a few steps and slamming her head against the top step before digging his knife into her thigh.

Meg struggled to kick him off of her with her uninjured leg, catching him in the mask, but he slashed at her and brought the jagged hunting knife down deep into her calf muscle, dragging it through almost a foot of tissue as she cried out in pain.

Too hurt to run, Meg tried to drag herself up to the top of the stairs with her arms. Behind her, she could hear the Legion breathing hard as he pulled himself up and approached her, putting a hand on her shoulder and holding tight to stop her from crawling away as he stooped beside her. He leaned in close, which was unexpected, until his mask was almost right beside her head, and then to her astonishment, he whispered.

“Listen, bitch,” said Legion, voice low and even, “nobody fucks with my crew. You got that?”

It was unsettling how level his tone was. The kind of way he was speaking—not whispering out of some kind of caution, but almost some horrifying twist on intimacy. Not wanting to be heard because this should be settled personally. It sent shivers down her spine.

_What the fuck? Because of Susie? Is that all this is about?_ thought Meg, trying to keep pace.

 “I’m not sure you heard me,” he whispered, suddenly grabbing the back of her neck and dragging her body few inches forward by it until her throat was held against the top step. He started applying pressure, choking her against the wood floor.

Meg shot out an arm suddenly and tried to elbow him in the face, but missed and hit his shoulder. He made an angry sound and pressed harder, and Meg’s body panicked, unable to fill her lungs with air, even though her mind was full of nothing but anger.

“You don’t,” he said quietly, punctuating the words with incremental increases in the pressure against the step, “fuck with my crew.”

Meg tried to hit him again and he caught the arm this time, grabbing it with his free hand. While he held her in place with the hand on the back of her neck and a knee at the small of her back, he twisted the arm slowly, painfully, hand on her wrist pulling her forearm up and back in a direction it wasn’t meant to bend. Meg tried to scream, but she could barely get any sound past the pressure on her throat and the burning emptiness in her lungs.

“Let’s try again,” said Legion, voice still quiet and low, “See if you’ve got it.”

He kept pressure on her arm but dragged her head back with his grip on the back of her neck. It hurt, but she could breathe again, and she did, gasping in to fill her lungs with much-needed oxygen.

The Legion gave her a second to catch her breath, holding her bent painfully backwards, arm still held at a dangerously tight angle. “Well?” he prompted.

“I didn’t fuck with your crew,” said Meg.

In one quick motion, he rammed her head against the top step and dragged her back again.

“Try again,” said the Legion.

“I was just nice,” spat Meg angrily.

He slammed her against the step again, and this time it split her head open and left blood dripping down her forehead.

“You keep away from my people,” said the Legion in a voice that was almost patient, and infuriatingly patronizing, “Or we’re going to have a problem.” He put pressure on her arm until she thought it was going to break, and Meg cried out in pain and then bit down on the inside of her lip, trying not to. “Let’s hear you say it,” he said.

“What are you so afraid of?” asked Meg, trying to turn against his grip so she could see him, “That you’re gonna lose one of them just because I’m nicer than you?”

“Okay,” he said with a sigh, and he snapped her arm at the elbow.

Pain shot up her right side and Meg screamed as the bone cracked. He let go of her arm and grabbed her throat instead, choking her and cutting the sound off midway.

“You don’t have to make this a spectacle,” he said quietly, releasing her throat, “Now. I’m having a hard time feeling like you’re getting what I’m saying, so let’s try this again. You ready to say what I want to hear?”

Meg was having a hard time thinking straight through the awful waves of pain running up and down her broken arm, and her breathing was ragged, thoughts scrambled. The blood from her forehead was running down her face into her eyes and mouth, and even though he’d let go of her throat her body was still playing catch-up, trying to breathe.

_Why? Just because I tried to make friends with one of them? I didn’t even do anything._

“Well?” he prompted. She felt the jagged knife he carried run across the skin at the edge of her throat, a threat.

“You want me to stop being nice to Susie?” asked Meg, voice weak from the trauma to her throat, and trying not to look at the knife, “Why?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Legion, voice low, “You just need to do what I tell you to do. Can you do that?”

“That’s not a very convincing reason,” said Meg.

He grabbed her and slammed her the half-foot back against the wall by the staircase, her head cracking against the wall as it snapped back. “You’re a little slow,” said Legion, crouched in front of her, knife still up. “They’re mine. You either fuck off, or I’m going to make you. Simple.”

_Bastard._

“Yeah?” he added when she took a second to respond, fingers digging around her hair and pulling her head up so she had to look at him.

She didn’t say anything.

The Legion slammed her head back against the wall again. It didn’t hurt that much—not like the arm, or the cuts in her legs, but it was so fucking mean, and her head ached, and she could barely see for all the blood dripping down her face. There wasn’t even a real reason to do this. Meg sucked in a mouthful of spit and blood and spat it onto his mask. “Fuck you,” she said, voice shaky, but with fury rather than fear.

He didn’t recoil from the spit in his face. He wiped it off with a forearm and looked back at her. “Your funeral,” he said, tone still level. With one swipe, he brought the knife forward and across her eyes, and Meg screamed. She barely had time to register even the pain before everything went black and red, and she felt something hard hit her in the chest, and then successive thud after thud as she hit the stairs and rolled down them with the force of the blow, impacting her back, and then the broken arm, then her side as she slid down the last few steps to the lodge floor below.

Using her unbroken arm, Meg tried to get up, fighting through the almost unbearable pain rippling from her elbow up her side. She tried to wipe away the blood in her eyes so she could see, but it hurt and she cried out at the pain when she tried to clear her eyes, and then it hit her for real what he’d done, and that she didn’t have them anymore.

“Don’t go far,” she heard him say, and she had no idea from where, or how far, “You might hurt yourself.”

She spun, trying to hear where he was, mind panicking because she couldn’t see. It hurt to stand, even putting as little weight on the leg with the torn calf as possible. Meg expected him to come after her, but nothing happened, and that was worse, and she pivoted, trying not to keep her back turned to anything for too long, the sound of his terror aura overwhelming and then suddenly gone, all at once. _He left? No, he wouldn’t. Then…_

Her body was trying to get her to cry, because it was hurt and scared, and Meg wanted to cry, because she was so angry, but she wasn’t sure if she could anymore with god only knew how much of her eyes even left, and she was afraid it would hurt, so she fought the urge down and turned it into rage. _I’m not staying around to see how he fucks with me. I have to go. I have to find one of the others, or._ Or what? She wasn’t getting out this blind. There was no way. _But fuck that, I’m not just going to stay here and wait for him to come get me,_ she thought angrily, _I’m going to try if it kills me._

Doing her best to feel with a foot where she was going, hands out to watch for things she might hit, Meg tried to feel her way out of the room in slow, careful steps. _That’s—a drop off? No. No stairs, so—the little lowered area in the room, right? By…By the fireplace?_ She reached out a tentative hand, trying to find the edge of one of the chairs or something. There was nothing, and then something solid and ragged. _A cushion?_

“Boo.”

She didn’t know how she hadn’t heart him at all until he was so close she felt the breath on her neck, but the terror aura flickered back around her and she spun around and swung at where the voice had been, fist passing through nothing but air.

“Close,” came his voice again, from her left, “But not quite.”

Meg turned to the sound and tried again, lunging towards the voice and missing the step to the little drop-off, falling and landing on her knees, broken arm jolted by the fall and sending stabs of pain up her body and she screamed, half anger, half pain. Everything hurt. It hurt to move—it hurt to breathe.

He had his hands around her braids before she could get off her knees and used it to drag her to her feet and fling her backwards into the fireplace. She didn’t fall into the flames, but the frame burned her and she screamed as she hit it and rolled off it onto the floor, hurt at least as much by her broken arm hitting the ground as the burn.

She lay there for a second, breathing hard.

Close by, she heard him move, footsteps on the wood floor announcing his presence as he waited for her. “Go on, I’ll wait,” he said, a few feet back, “Get up.”

_Fucking._ Meg took a deep breath and grabbed the edge of the little raised brazier the fireplace was in with her good arm, trying to pull herself up. Her arm gave out the first time, body crying at the pain in her back and arm and head, but she tried again, too determined and angry to fail.

Slowly, she did it, pushing herself up onto one elbow, and from there to her feet, blind, finally turning to face him where she’d heard him last.

“Well, well,” she heard him say, and there was the sound of something creaking as he moved, “Still not got it through your head.”

Meg started to walk, slow, arm out and reaching just in case and trying to feel her footing as she went towards him.

She heard him laugh, close, and shot out a hand. If felt leather, with something moving behind it. _Jacket._ She pulled the fist back and swung. He caught it and dragged her into him, arm twisted around hers so she couldn’t pull back. She felt him move, the fabric of his hoodie brushing the side of her face as he leaned close.

“You really want to do this?” he whispered, pressure on her wrist. They were so close to each other she could feel his breathing, and it was so fucking calm. Like he was at home, reading a book. Not even excited, not even angry. Not scared.

Meg shot her head forward and sunk her teeth into the hand clamped around her wrist.

He let go and cried out in pain himself, and then something smacked her in the face, hard, and she lost her balance and stumbled back, almost falling but just barely catching herself. It stung. Without her vision, pain was overwhelming her other senses, and she tried to listen, but it wasn’t enough. Everything was disorienting, and she couldn’t judge distance or speed from what she heard, and it was so hard to think of anything through the agony down her arm every time she moved. She heard him coming and put her good hand up in a fist, like a boxer, trying to protect her face, but she couldn’t see the blows coming and there was just no way to defend against him. A fist slammed into the side of her face and knocked her against the fireplace again, but he grabbed her before she fell this time, bloody hand snagging her hair and dragging her up by it.

Blindly, Meg kneed him as hard as she could, hoping for the groin and hitting a knee instead, but getting what she wanted as she heard him let out a muffled curse and release her hair. Trying to aim for the sound, Meg launched herself forward, slamming into him and knocking them both to the wood floor of the lodge.

The impact hurt like hell, but Meg’s hand found the side of his head as he struggled with her and she started beating against it with her elbow, trying to bash his head in. She got him twice before he seemed to even figure out what was happening, and then she felt something close around her broken elbow and squeeze and she screamed, recoiling from him and falling back onto the floor beside him in a mass of pain, mind overwhelmed and unable to do anything but feel agony for a few seconds. As she tried to fight down the pain, she was vaguely aware that he was moving, and then of footsteps on wood as he moved beside her, and then something hard slammed into her stomach and she lost the ability to think.

It came again, and again, and again, his booted foot kicking her while she was down, until with his last swing he knocked her back into the little lowered fireplace area, and she rolled to a stop by its base, unmoving, trying to breathe.

Above her, outside the lowered area, she could hear him pacing through the pounding in her head. Waiting to see if she would get back up. Trying to steel herself on the floor, Meg didn’t. She just lay there, breathing, thinking.

“Have I made my point?” asked the Legion after a few seconds. Only about three feet from her, up there somewhere.

Meg laughed. She didn’t intend to, but she was so furious and it was such an absurd thing to say to her that she couldn’t help it. Above her, she heard him stop moving.

“You must,” said Meg, pausing to force herself up on one elbow. Her reaching hand found the edge of the fireplace and dragged her up towards it until she was almost kneeling against it. “You must be a really weak little bitch yourself to think that beating me up was going to just break me,” she finished, turning to look towards where she’d heard his voice.

He was silent, but she could tell he was there, watching her.

“You know,” continued Meg, dragging herself onto the soles of her feet and trying to maintain her balance, “I’ve known guys like you all my life. And you don’t scare me. You want to know why that is?” she still had her face turned towards him, but her good hand reached out into the fireplace and her fingers closed around a searing hot log as her charred nerve endings screamed in protest, “It’s because I’ve been through every bit as much shit as you have, and I didn’t let it change who I was,” said Meg, dragging herself to her feet, fingers burning around the glowing log she still held and turning to face him.

She stood there, breathing hard, fighting every impulse in her body to drop the thing that was burning through her fingers and letting the pain stay so she could have a weapon. Blind, bloodied, broken arm, she stood, holding a white-hot ember and facing him down with the poise of someone who still had a chance.

“So come at me, you little bitch,” said Meg, motioning with her head, log leveled at him, “What’s the worst you can do, huh? Kill me? I’m not scared of you.” She laughed, the anger that had been building in her since this began coursing through her veins and fueling her until it was true, she wasn’t scared, “Strike me down and I’ll only become stronger than you could possible imagine.” She grinned at him through the blood on her face. _You can’t even make me take this seriously._

He came. The knife hit her in her shoulder, but she kept her grip on the burning log and rammed it into his stomach, and this time she heard him scream. She screamed back, like a berserker, and slammed her forehead into the arm holding the knife, bashing it against his forearm. He recoiled and slashed at her, cutting her across the chest, and she swung the log at him, hitting him in the side of the head and knocking him back. She heard him stumble, and she flung herself at him again, and they both went down onto the floor, her on top. They hit the wood hard, knocking the breath out of him, and Meg swung the log down into his head over and over, still screaming. Then he stopped moving beneath her.

_Fucking—I. Shit, shit, did I kill him?_ thought Meg, suddenly not sure she wanted to have ended the life of another human being, even this one. She could still feel him breathing weakly beneath her, and he groaned, and then she was sure, so she dropped the log and stopped hitting him, breathing hard and crawling off the body, trying to catch her own breath. _I can’t—the fucking. God this hurts too much. Did I just?_

She had been so sure that he was down. He had seemed really hurt. But there was no slowness in his movements as suddenly something slammed into the side of her head, and then he was on top of her, bringing the knife down into her chest, and Meg went still, body twitching as it tried hard not to die, at the maximum of what it could physically handle.

Above her, she heard him stand up, breathing hard, and he pulled the knife out. “You don’t know shit about me,” she heard him say, sounding angry and maybe a little proud.

His foot pressed down on the broken elbow and she screamed weakly, not strong enough to even really tremble at the pain now.

“And you’re going,” he said, still breathing hard, “to leave my people alone. Or I’ll do this over and over,” he continued, pressing harder on the break, “as many times it takes.”

Meg was angry. She wasn’t strong enough to fight back, and she couldn’t think of anything smart to say, but she was so fucking mad. After everything she’d been through in this hellscape, she’d tried just once to do something kind for someone here who definitely didn’t deserve it, and she was being blamed for that? Blocked for it? And why? Because—because this fucking asshole felt like she was some kind of threat? _I’ve know you,_ thought Meg, wishing she could see him, see the damage she’d done to him, _I’ve gotten the shit beaten out of me by you before so many times in highschool. People like you. And I’m sick of it. I’m done losing._

Neither of them had been paying any attention, but outside, the last generator must have been lit, because the alarm announcing the exits could be powered sounded.

_That’s something,_ thought Meg, _They’re all going to get away because you wasted time here with me. But you know what else? It’s not enough._

She felt him shift above her, probably considering chasing after the others.

The fury that had been building in her chest was the only thing keeping her body together at this point, and it built and spread, surging through her body and filling her with a sensation she had never felt before, like she was on fire, burning her blood with the rage in her.

_It’s always like this. And it can’t be anymore._

 “You know,” said Meg, smiling, blood dripping out of her mouth, “I do know something about you. You’re nothing.”

He turned to look at her, and it took Meg a second to realize she knew that. Because she’d seen it. The rage pouring through her filled her system with something like adrenaline but stronger and she felt it pump through her. Above her, he had his mask slid half-off, hand up feeling a burn at his jaw, in the one eye she could see she saw shock and horror as he watched her eyes put themselves back together.

“You think you’re hot shit because you figured out you can run around and hurt other people and it makes you feel strong,” continued Meg, feeling the bone in her elbow set itself, but too angry herself to really feel the surprise that should have been there, “But you’re not a villain, Legion, or some big scary killer, or the tough, cool badboy. You’re just an asshole with a pointy object. And that’s all you’re ever gonna be.”

She grabbed the foot on her elbow with her suddenly healed arm and screamed, jerking him backwards and onto the floor with her, his head cracking on the edge of the steps down to the fireplace area as he did. Meg dragged herself up his leg like someone possessed, pulling him towards her and her towards him at the same time and ending up above him again. He swung the knife, going for her chest, and she caught it in her hand this time, ripping his mask off with her other hand and slamming her head into the bridge of his nose. The Legion rammed his elbow into the side of her head and tried to kick her off of him, but she kept her hand on the knife, grappling with him for it. She rammed her head against his nose again, harder, splitting it open and sending blood down his face, and in the instant he was stunned, she tore the knife out of his hand and brought it down at his chest.

It vanished. The knife vanished as she swung it, and she hit his chest with nothing, and they looked at each other in surprise for a second, then she felt something sharp dig into her ribs. Meg looked down and saw his other hand and the same blade, sticking out of her chest.

“Only Jules and I can use it,” he whispered, a slow grin spreading over his face.

The Legion dug the blade out of her gut and stabbed it in again, and Meg’s body shuddered, her earlier burst of energy fading.

“Did you really think you could beat us in a fight?” he asked, sounding amused, “You know the rules can’t be broken. Predator-prey,” he added, digging the knife out and pointing at him self with it, then digging it into her side.

He threw her off him onto the ground beside him and knelt beside her. Meg was having a hard time breathing and moving, but she was thinking just fine, and as angry and bitter and hurt as she had been before.

“Now,” he said, placing a knee on the injured stomach and slowly applying pressure, “Where were we?”

“I hate to tell you this,” said Meg, breathing shallowly, “But you’re not even cute. I was kind of expecting under the mask that was going to be your one redeeming quality, but you’re butt-ugly.”

The Legion narrowed his eyes and pressed harder with his knee.

“How many drugs were you taking?” asked Meg weakly, “Because it was too many.”

He leaned forward towards her and a rock hit him in the head.

The Legion stopped and turned his head slowly to look. Meg tried too do the same, pinned on the floor. As he was turning, another rock hit him in the head. It didn’t look like it really hurt, but he looked mad as hell about it.

“She’s going to come with us,” came a voice Meg couldn’t see the owner of, but sounded like Claudette’s.

_Team MOM? Here?_ thought Meg, suddenly excited when she knew she should have been worried.

“It’s none of your,” the Legion started, then Meg just barely had time to see a flash of motion before something slammed into the side of his head from behind and he went flying off her, and Meg was looking up at Kate, remembering from firsthand experience how much a roundhouse kick from her hurt.

_BOTH team moms?_ thought Meg, too out of it to actually try to get up even though the Legion wasn’t on her anymore.

Vaguely, Meg was aware of the Legion going after Kate. She could hear swings and see things being knocked over. Claudette was trying to make it to her through the chaos, and she did.

“I’m sorry,” Meg thought she heard Claudette say, dragging her up into her lap and trying to stop some of the bleeding, “I can always see when people are hurt, and I couldn’t and I don’t understand why. We all thought you were fine and it’s my fault.”

Meg was starting to black out, but she saw a motion and tried to warn Claudette, but she didn’t make it in time, and the Legion’s blade dug into Claudette’s side and sent her sprawling back. He was standing hunched over Meg for a second, and then Kate was there, leaping at his back and knocking him over.

_No, I don’t want this,_ thought Meg weakly, _I don’t’ want them to get hurt protecting me._

It was hard to make out what was happening through the yells and the sounds of things smashing into other things, and Meg willed her earlier strength to come back and power her again, but nothing happened.

Ace was so quiet she didn’t realize he was even there until she felt hands slip under her back and knees and was lifted up.

“Wait, I don’t want to leave them,” said Meg weakly, looking up at him.

He didn’t answer, although she could tell he’d heard her, just edged towards the back of the room, trying not to be noticed. Meg could see shapes she thought were Kate and Claudette and the Legion struggling. Kate was knocked back over a low desk and Claudette dodged a swing from the Legion, then was raked across the face and stumbled back into a wall.

“Ace, go back,” she begged, watching her friends being torn up like she had been, “Please.”

He looked towards the fight in the lodge, just barely outside with Meg now, in the snow, and then down at her face. He let out a breath that fogged in the air and nodded, leaning her against a pile of junk in the cold.

“Nobody comes back out, try not to get found,” he whispered, putting a hand on her shoulder before turning back to the lodge.

It was cold, and blue and white were the only colors Meg could believe really existed out in the snow, but through the opening to the lodge was a different world. Lit by fire, there were yellows and reds and blood spatter and the blue of Quentin’s jacket on Claudette, and Kate’s shorts, the tan of Ace’s suit jacket. It should have looked warmer—better. More inviting. But it was safer where she was, in the cold and the darkness, away from the heat and light that gave you away, and through the rectangle of light made by the open doorway, Meg could only watch.

The Legion was still fighting maskless. Kate was blocking and dodging and swinging with all the expertise her practice sessions with Jake and David had given her, but it didn’t matter, and watching, Meg could tell. She could see what she hadn’t been willing to see earlier.

He would take a hit, and it would hurt, but not like it should. The reaction was shorter, smaller. But they felt everything. Even three on one, Meg knew watching that they were never going to win. It hurt, and it made her bitter, and angry. Because this was her fault, but it also wasn’t. There were so many things that should never have gotten where they were in order for things to be like they were now, and no one had ever stopped even one of them. She saw him punch Claudette, hard, and she went down and couldn’t seem to get back up, bleeding from the cut across her face and a dozen small swipes all over. Ace knocked him away from her and sent himself and the Legion over the same counter he’d knocked Kate over a minute ago, Legion on bottom taking the impact, but when they came up, it was like it hadn’t even really hurt him. Ace grabbed a book from the desk and swung it at him, but it broke on impact like everything here did, and the Legion dug his knife in deep at Ace’s throat, knocking him to the ground and vanishing with him behind the counter.

Seeing, Kate grabbed Claudette and tried to run, heading for one of the side exits. She made it out, and Meg lost sight of her as she passed out of the part of the lodge Meg could see through the open doorway, but she saw the Legion get up and run after her, and then Meg saw her again, out in the snow, him closing in, and Meg knew simultaneously that Kate could make it to the door if she dropped Claudette, and that Kate wasn’t going to drop her, and both of them were going to die.

_It isn’t fair,_ thought Meg, rage and despair fighting for precedence in her heart.

She knew Kate must have screamed as the Legion’s blade caught her between the shoulder blades and dragged her down, but Meg couldn’t hear it. She could see it, though. She saw Claudette drag herself up and try to protect Kate, and she saw him gut both of them.

Then she wasn’t mad or despairing anymore. She was just sad. Sad for her friends, and for everything that had ever happened in this place.

The Legion stood then, about twenty yards off, breath fogging up the air, covered in blood.

_I could try to crawl to a door, or find the hatch, or hide and bleed out,_ thought Meg, watching him turn around and look, hoping to see her. _Or._

She looked up at the side of the lodge.

Meg started to crawl, digging her fingers into the snow and forcing herself to keep going. _I should have ever been here,_ Meg thought, working, digging for the anger from before and trying to let it fuel her again, _I shouldn’t have been alone. My dad shouldn’t have left me._

 She made the doorway and kept going, heading for the lowered area and the fireplace at its heart.

_My mom should have been happy. She should have had family who protected her._

Meg’s body hurt, dragging her wounds against the floor, but she kept going. She reached the lowered area and pulled herself down the little drop-off, then towards the fireplace.

_I should have had friends who cared about me. I should have gotten to go to college._

Meg came to a stop by the fireplace and looked up at the inside wall. At the mural with the big, dripping words. _The Legion._ She thrust her hand into the fireplace and dragged out another burning log, biting deep into her cheek to keep from screaming, and with all the might she had she threw it at the corner of the room and grabbed another and another.

_My mom should have been okay. I should have gotten to be in love and had someone love me back. I should have lived long enough to do something._

Meg hung there, panting, hand burning, elbow barely propping her up beside the fireplace, and she waited to see the building catch fire and engulph itself in flames. But it didn’t. The longs burned and caught nothing. Broken, fake, like everything else in this fucking world, and Meg started to cry, angry and lost and sad. She couldn’t save her mom, or her friends, or herself, and there was no one else there to do it for her. It wasn’t fair. Or right. Or okay. And this place wouldn’t even let her break something to let out the rage that left in her.

She saw him then, at the doorway opposite her, snow on his boots from outside, and they looked at each other across the room. He turned his head to see the burning chunks of wood, to see what she’d been trying to do, then back at her. There was a long silence as they looked at each other across the room, neither moving, Meg in the glowing light and harsh shadows of the fire, him still backlit by the moon and the blue light reflected from the snow, the two of them inhabiting the same world and completely different ones at the same time for just a moment.

He walked in then, past burning embers on the ground that refused to spread, over towards her, somehow deathly quiet, his footsteps drowned out by the crackling of the fire behind her. The Legion came to a stop above the little drop-off she was in and bent, picking up his mask. Holding it, he straightened up and turned to look at her for a long couple of seconds, then pulled the mask over his face and flipped his hoodie up over it, turned, and walked back to the doorway he’d come from. He hesitated in the frame and looked back at her one last time, then turned and disappeared into the night, leaving Meg alone in the silence of the lodge bleed out.

With nothing left, Meg slid down against the fireplace and curled up on the floor, cradling her burned hand against the wounds in her stomach, and cried silently, angry, and bitter, and alone, until she bled out and was gone.

 

* * *

  

The trial wasn’t a long one.

Susie got the boy who looked like he never slept, the girl who would stab you back, the policeman, and Meg.

Her other trials had been in Ormond, but this one was different. Another forest, with a big cabin in the center, and it threw her off, but she did her best to keep up. The policeman was incredibly hard to take down, and every time she got near one of the others, especially the boy their age, the blonde girl with pieces of glass would appear out of nowhere and Susie would have to deal with her instead. She spent most of the trial trying to take down, and eventually succeeded in sacrificing the blonde girl after suffering quite a few stab wounds herself. It hurt, but she knew it didn’t hurt as much  as it did when she stabbed people. Susie knew that like a dictionary fact, kind of cold and detached, but she didn’t want to approach it any closer. She spent the rest of the trial trying to avoid Meg, and sort of hoping Meg might still try not to be avoided, but it didn’t happen this time.

Which is what she’d been afraid of, after what Frank had done.

_It’s good though,_ Susie told herself, _It’s the only way things can go._ And she tried to believe that all the way through. It was true, probably, but she felt bad, because she sort of knew Meg, and she knew she meant well, and she didn’t want her not to know that she felt bad, because she did care. She cared about how she got remembered by Meg, and she didn’t want her to think what had happened was what she had wanted to happen, and that to be what was the end of it with her. But there wasn’t anything she could, or should, do about it, and she told herself that, and tried to chase people down in the forest and kill them and not feel bad about it.

In the end, she only got the one, and she was left watching the boy her age disappear through one of the exits, having left the cop and Meg at the other already, and knowing she’d failed.

_I can’t keep being so bad at this,_ Susie thought, tired, _I have to get better at it or I’m going to be in trouble._

“Hey.”

She spun around, and there was Meg, who she knew she’d chased out an exit earlier. Right to the barrier. She’d been so sure she was gone.

“You’re—” Susie started, answering automatically out of relief and happiness, then stopping, because she knew she shouldn’t, “Hi. I thought. Because, all the trial, you were…”

The relief disappeared suddenly, because she didn’t know what she was supposed to do now. She had been hoping this might happen because she had thought it was impossible, and she hadn’t had to worry about what she would do if it did.

“Well, you don’t usually seem to feel like talking during trials,” said Meg, standing about eighteen feet back, arms folded across her chest.

“Yeah,” said Susie quietly. “But you came back. Why?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Why?” asked Tapp, turning to Meg as they waited in their exit to make sure Quentin made it out, “After all of this, you still want to do it?”

“I mean, I’m not gonna lie,” said Meg, “I did feel like throwing myself off a bridge after Legion boy. But then I got back to camp, and Kate’s been working on arrangements for _Pitch Perfect_ for me, and Claudette felt so bad that she babied me all day and made me something that I genuinely believe really was a cookie somehow, and everything wasn’t so bad anymore, and I thought, ‘fuck it, don’t just get mad, use that’. Because what else am I going to do with energy? Be sad? There’s so much shit I can’t do, but this,” she said, motioning towards the waiting forest, “This is something I can do.”

“Why’s it such a big deal?” asked Tapp, “Why’s this worth it to you? You got a hunch, okay. But you’re going through all kinds of shit for someone you don’t even know. You can’t think that’s your job.”

“No, I know it’s not,” said Meg, looking back out into the trial grounds, “It’s not that.”

“And did you mean throw yourself off a bridge in a literal sense, or is this the millennial gallows humor thing you were trying to explain to me,” added Tapp.

“No, it’s the gallows humor,” said Meg.

“Good, because if you really meant throw yourself off a bridge I would be concerned—” said Tapp.

“—No, I know you would,” said Meg, “I’m not going to do that. Even if I could find one.”

“You really want to do this, though?” asked Tapp, following her gaze into the woods.

“Yeah,” said Meg, looking far away, “I wish I could explain it right. I have a good reason.”

“Try,” said Tapp, hoping she would.

“Okay. Well. It’s like…” Meg thought hard for a second, and Tapp watched her. “Okay, so, my whole life, I’ve been really, really good at two things,” said Meg, “I know that isn’t much, but I was proud of it. I was good at running, and my mom. And I gave up one of those, and had the other one taken away.”

Tapp nodded slowly, thinking over his own past. _What did you have, old man? A dead partner, an ex-wife that didn’t want to visit you in the hospital, a son you weren’t there for, and a lot of solved cases in a file. I wonder, was that worth it?_

And now? Now there was nothing. Being a cop meant nothing here, and he knew, deep down, that it never would, no matter how much he would keep trying to live by it.

“I’m not trying to find something to replace that,” continued Meg, “Nothing could, anyway. But it isn’t fair. I barely had anything, and I still lost it. I don’t really know who I’m supposed to be now. And I know that this whole thing with Susie—it’s not something I’m good at, or that I’m ‘supposed’ to do. But maybe there isn’t anything left that I’m good at, or supposed to do.”

To Tapp, she seemed sad, but also set, readied for something.

“All my life, way before this even,” said Meg, gesturing at the trial around them, “there have been so many things that happened that never should have happened, and it was always _somebody’s_ job to make it not, but those people were never there. I’ve seen it happen to friends, and family. Everyone. And sometimes it’s a mom who never said the right things, or a dad who wasn’t there, a friend that didn’t look out for you, or a god who abandoned you when you needed them, but I’m sick of all of it.”

As Tapp watched her expression, he believed she meant it. She looked tired, and resolved, the kind of strong that came from knowing how to survive. A lonely kind of strong.

“It’s not that she reminds me of myself,” continued Meg, glancing over at him “I’m not that self-centered. It’s like…she reminds me of what it felt like being alone when I shouldn’t have been. Nobody was there for me so much when I needed it growing up, and there’s nobody here to save all of us now, and nobody for her either. I don’t care if she deserves my help or not. I think to end up like she has, probably a whole lot of somebodies did something really wrong, or not at all, and that’s not fair.” She paused for a second, glancing down at her feet, and then looked back up at him and kept going. “I’m not stupid. I know I’m not the person whose job it is to make it better for her, or who would even be good at it, but I want to do this. Because if I don’t try, there isn’t going to be anyone who ever does. And that isn’t fair. I have to. Because I can, and somebody should.”

Looking at her, there was a fire. Something like chasing justice, which he knew all too well himself, but not quite. It was a little bigger than that, because justice had always been such a personal scale for him, and this was almost cosmic. “For what it’s worth,” said Tapp slowly, watching her, “I don’t know that I think you should do this, because I want you not to get hurt.”

Meg nodded, like she’d known that would be what he was going to say.

“But,” continued Tapp, “I also think you’re right.”

She turned and looked up at him in surprise.

“I’m used to being someone with a little bit of power,” said Tapp thoughtfully, “And I’m not anymore. I never had as much as I wanted even when I was young, could never change much. I know I hurt people, too—never meant to, but I did. Now there’s nothing but this shit over and over, and there isn’t really _anything_ I can do anymore. But we still gotta try, or what’s the point, right? So, if you really think you want to try and save that girl, go do it. And for whatever else it’s worth,” he added, trying for once to say something someone really needed to hear, “I think you’re something that’s grown up a lot more powerful than anything who ever let you down, whether you know it yet or not.”

Meg stood there, staring at him, for a good three seconds, and then she teared up and threw her arms around him and pulled him into a hug.

Tapp still wasn’t use to this, but it was just part of how she was, and he knew that at this point, so he reached down a hugged back.

“Just don’t do anything real stupid, okay?” he said as he let go.

Meg smiled up at him. “I can’t promise that, we both know me, but I’ll do what I can,” she said, backing up towards the trial ground and waving.

_Good luck,_ thought Tapp, praying she didn’t need it.

 

* * *

 

“Why?” said Meg, uncrossing her arms and giving Susie a look, “Did you think your ugly boyfriend kicking my ass was going to make me disappear?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” said Susie quickly, “And I’m sorry—I didn’t—Frank did that, I didn’t ask him to.”

“Frank,” said Meg thoughtfully, “Yeah, he looked like a Frank.”

“Are you…you know,” Susie said slowly, gesturing at Meg, “It looked—like, he made it sound pretty painful. And bad.”

“Yeah, we heal after trials like that,” said Meg, snapping her fingers, “But thanks for asking.”

“So…” Susie trailed off awkwardly, not sure what else to say, “Uhm, I’m glad you’re alive and stuff, but what, uh. You know we can’t. So. Uh.”

“Why am I here?” offered Meg.

Susie nodded.

 “Didn’t want you to think I gave up,” said Meg, “But also didn’t want to cause my friends trouble. Figured I should help do gens and make sure they got out this time, so I don’t get anyone but me killed if things happen.”

“So, what does that mean?” asked Susie, “Like, you just wanted to come tell me that?”

“No, I thought we could hang out,” said Meg, smiling.

“You. What?” asked Susie, disbelieving, “You _just_ got told like seventy times we can’t do that. But you’re still. Oh. That’s what you meant about not giving up.”

“What else would I have meant?” asked Meg, looking honestly confused.

“But I told you,” said Susie unhappily, “I can’t be your friend. Like, I don’t actually dislike you. And I’m not, like, super crazy about killing people either. But I can’t not do it. And I’m not a good person. You gotta know that.”

“I mean, you’ve killed me a couple times, so I got that for sure,” said Meg, “But I don’t really think you’re bad either.”

“I have to be,” said Susie, “And I have to get better at it. There’s no choice.”

“Well, there could be,” said Meg, “You have to kill people not to get tortured, right?”

Susie nodded.

“We could just work out a system. Let you kill some of us in trials, but not spend the whole time a living hell. We could spend the rest of it playing games, or just talking, whatever. Why not?” said Meg.

“You all wouldn’t do that,” said Susie, “Who would just let someone kill them—I mean I guess other than you specifically? Because you have, but you’re weird. I don’t think most people would do that.”

“It’s not just a loss for us,” offered Meg, “We die a lot in trials anyway, and at least this way there’s less fear and suffering before that part. Plus, we’d have you as a friend. We could work together on finding some way home.”

“I can’t go home,” said Susie, sounding worried and scared, “You don’t understand. Plus, there’s not a way out of here.”

“There has to be. Doors open both ways,” said Meg, “And there’s ways _into_ here. We just need to find them.”

“But the others,” said Susie, distressed, “They’ll find out and I’ll get in trouble. _You’ll_ get in trouble. Like before, but worse.”

“Will your own friends narc on you to the Entity? Knowing it would get you killed?” asked Meg.

Susie thought about that quietly for a couple of seconds as Meg watched. “I don’t know,” she said finally, “Julie wouldn’t. But Frank might. Because he really wouldn’t want me to do this.”

“Frank would let you die, and the others would just be good with that?” asked Meg, “Even Julie, who wouldn’t narc herself?”

“No,” said Susie, looking a little confused and distracted for a second, “I don’t think so. Maybe. I. Hang on. Let me think.”

Meg did, and Susie muttered to herself under her breath for a few seconds before looking back up.

“I guess maybe not?” she said slowly.

“We could try being friends then,” said Meg happily, “And you wouldn’t be in danger.”

“Your other buddies would really do that?” said Susie, sounding like she wasn’t going to believe the answer no matter what.

“Totally,” said Meg.

“I don’t know,” said Susie nervously, “I’ve already killed some of them. They probably didn’t like that.”

“Well, no shit, but I didn’t love it either,” said Meg, “And I’m still here.”

“But if the Entity notices, I’ll be in so much trouble,” said Susie, plopping down and putting her head in her hands.

“Well. Okay. Let me ask you something,” said Meg, edging a little closer because she suddenly felt like she was loosing ground after doing so well, “Are you happy like this?”

“Happy?” asked Susie, looking up.

“Yeah,” said Meg, cautiously sitting opposite her, “Happy killing people, and with friends who might narc on you and get you killed because they don’t like that you _don’t_ want to kill people.”

“No,” said Susie after a second.

“Then give us a try,” said Meg, “We’re okay—really. Don’t bite or anything.”

“They aren’t bad friends,” said Susie apologetically, “I _am_ happy with them. Just. They also kind of scare me,” she added very, very quietly, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Susie,” said Meg, cautiously reaching a hand out and putting it on the other girl’s shoulder, “You gotta know that you shouldn’t be afraid of your own friends, right?”

She didn’t answer.

“Look, just let us try it. One time, see what you think,” said Meg encouragingly, “I might even be able to sneak in a little alcohol.”

“You do not have alcohol,” said Susie, “There’s no alcohol in this place.”

“Yeah there is,” said Meg, “My friend Claudette has been experimenting in secret and figured out how to make some. She thinks none of us know about it, but I’ve been skimming her supply for weeks.”

Susie was quiet for a second, then tipped her mask up so Meg could see her face, and turned to look at her. “Why do you care what happens to me?”

Meg shrugged. “I guess it seemed like someone should. And then I kind of started to like it. You seem like someone it’d kind of be a shame to just give up on.”

Susie watched her expression carefully as she spoke, and then her face crumpled and she shot forward and for a second Meg thought she was attacking her again, but the girl just wrapped her arms around Meg and buried her head against her neck.

_Thaaats why that terrifies everyone,_ thought Meg, feeling her heart trying to slow back down to a non-fight-or-flight speed, _Okay. I get it now._

Meg reached over and hugged her back.

“I thought you wouldn’t come back after Frank,” said Susie, sounding like she crying.

“That little bitch?” said Meg, “He’s just a bully. I’ve been bullied my whole life. Can’t let it change how I act anymore, or I’d never get anything done. It’s just impractical.”

Susie giggled. “He’d flip his shit being called a little bitch.”

“Oh, he did,” said Meg, thinking back, “He did… You’ll give it a try, then?” she added, trying to move into a position where she could see Susie’s face.

Susie nodded, but didn’t let go of her. “Meg?” she asked, eyes closed, arms still would tight around the other girl.

“Yeah?” asked Meg.

“Thank you,” said Susie.

_I knew all that Naruto in gradeschool would pay off someday,_ thought Meg, but out loud she said, “You’re welcome. I probably got to go soon, so we don’t get suspicious—and I am going this time, because your buddy broke my arm and then stepped on it. You can kill me next trial. But before I go, do you want to do anything?”

“Like what?” asked Susie, opening her eyes.

“I dunno,” said Meg, “Talk, sing, we could just sort of explore. What do you _want_ to do that you don’t get to?”

“Uhm,” said Susie, thinking, “Oh! Well. Maybe. If you don’t…”

“What?” asked Meg.

“I could do your hair,” offered Susie awkwardly, shuffling her tennis shoe against the dirt, “And you could braid mine.”

“You want to do each other’s hair?” said Meg, genuinely taken aback.

“I mean, not if you think it’s dumb,” said Susie, “I know that’s kind of kid shit, but I never get to do mine, and Julie and I used to. At sleepovers. And to help dye mine.”

“No, that’s okay,” said Meg, “I don’t mind. I’ve just never had someone do that before. Except I guess my mom. I guess in shows it is kind of a thing, though. In teen shows.”

“It’s fun,” said Susie a little more enthusiastically, “Just don’t give me pigtails.”

“I would never,” said Meg.

“I can do yours first,” offered Susie, motioning for her to sit in front of her.

“Okay,” said Meg, still feeling a little nervous about being knifed as she followed the other girl’s gestures and moved, turning her back to Susie and sitting in front of her. “Just make sure I still look cool.”

“Still?” asked Susie.

“Hey,” said Meg, “that’s mean.” She felt the other girl’s fingers in her hair, undoing the hairbands and braids one at a time.

“Why do you have three braids anyway?” asked Susie, “That’s too many braids.”

“Well, when I was younger, I was super into the little braid Jim has in _Treasure Planet,_ but my hair is too thick to get that with just one braid, so I had to do three,” explained Meg.

“With who from what?” asked Susie, leaning over to look at her face.

“Oh,” said Meg happily, tone almost maniacal, “Oh I’ll tell you.”

“That’s scary,” said Susie, “Don’t say things like that.”

“It’s a Disney movie,” explained Meg, relenting a little, “I could tell you the plot.”

“Right now?” asked Susie.

“No, that would take an hour and a half,” said Meg, “But I could give you the opening.”

“Go ahead, I guess,” said Susie, “But you still have to give me braids.”

“Trust me,” said Meg, “In fourteen and a half minutes, you’ll want tiny braids too.”

“I kind of doubt it,” said Susie, fluffing Meg’s hair, which had come out wavy from being braided tight for so long, “But take your best shot.”

“Always do,” said Meg. “Okay, so. The movie begins. Beautiful night sky, purple and blue with stars. There's a violin playing and it sounds like peace but also the promise of adventure on the high seas. We get the title faded in and out for just a moment, and its golden but with the texture of a treasure map: ‘Treasure Planet.’ As it fades, an old man begins to speak. And he says,” said Meg, doing a voice, “‘On the clearest of nights, when the winds of the Ethereum were calm and peaceful...’ and for just a moment a trumpet comes in plays the beginning of a leitmotif, ‘Mmm-hmm-huuh-hmmm,’” she hummed with it, four notes: higher, lower, then higher and higher again, “and the bow of a massive ship comes into view--old and wood, like any ship you might expect in an old sea voyage, but as it passes, it turns and we see that it isn't sailing. It's flying.”

Susie watched Meg, enraptured by her own story, with some amount of wonder as she played with her hair.

“And the old man continues,” said Meg, doing the voice again, “and he says ‘The great merchant ships, with their cargos full of Arcturian solar crystals felt safe, and secure. Little did they know that they were pursued by _Pirates_.’ –And suddenly a Jolly Roger fills the frame, but it isn't one—it's like one, but the skull isn't human, and it's orbited by planetary rings, not swords, and there it is—a pirate ship, burning red solar sails as it swoops in after its much larger prey. And the man says, ‘And the most feared of all these pirates, was the notorious captain Nathaniel Flint.’” Meg waived her arms, accentuating the action. “We see him from behind for just a second, and then he turns, and he's a creature like a human but with fangs and six eyes, and he yells at his men to fire!”

Susie tilted her head, trying to picture what that might look like and thinking of something a bit like a vampire and a spider and a person all at once.

“The little pirate ship explodes with action,” continued Meg enthusiastically, “barraging the side of the merchant ship with shot after merciless shot from their cannons, blowing massive holes in the side as inside, alien civilian passengers cling to each other in fear. The merchant crew tries to fight back, but they're getting mowed down as the ships pull even, and then suddenly, something rises into frame, and it's a head—even bigger than the ships! But it's not some space monster. The whole head comes into frame and it's a little boy, maybe five years old, and he's watching the scene with excitement and wonder. And it makes no sense at first, because how could he be there? But then suddenly we see that this isn't some massive scene. We’ve been seeing what he sees. This little boy is reading a book made out of projections—holograms, like a movie inside a book, and the light show and pirate ships are that story. He’s alone on a small bed at home, a couple of books and a little toy boat on his bedside table, and we realize that it's his adventure, not theirs, that's about to start.”

“He’s the main character, right?” asked Susie, “Does he have the tiny braid yet?”

“Yeah, but not yet,” said Meg, “He’s five.”

“Okay,” said Susie, “Keep going. But I’m gonna ask questions.”

“That’s fine,” said Meg, diving right back in, “So the narrator starts to keep reading the book, but a door opens and suddenly woman who you know has to be his mom says ‘James Pleiades Hawkins! I thought you were asleep an hour ago.’ and he slams the book shut and you can tell he feels a little bad, but he’s five, so not very. He wants to read his story. And he sits down by his pillow hugging the book and says ‘But Mom, I was just getting to the best part. Please?’” said Meg, doing a new voice for every character as she went, “And his mom loves him and the book only had like a minute left, so she rolls her eyes and smiles and goes ‘Oh, could those eyes get any bigger?’ and sits down to read it with him, and they open it up there together, and the narrator starts back up, and the story continues. The pirates destroy the crew and steal their goods and leave the ship to burn, and the narrator continues, saying, ‘Like a Candarian zap-wing overtaking its prey, Flint and his band of renegades swept in out of nowhere, and after gathering up their spoils, vanished, without a trace,’ And as he says it, the pirate ship disappears, and Jim and his mom look at each other and ‘Ooooh,’ because he loves this part and she knows it.”

That was easy to picture, because watching her, Susie could tell how much Meg liked this part. _Meg’s really fucking weird,_ thought Susie, watching her, but she thought it in a nice way, and then after a moment, as Meg kept talking, she absently thought, _I wonder if everyone on the ship died?_ starting to braid a crown around the top of Meg’s head, _I guess that’s how pirates work._

“And the narrator says,” continued Meg, voice lowering to conspiratorial, “’Flint's secret trove was never found, but stories have persisted that it is still hidden somewhere at the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Riches beyond imagination. The loot of a thousand worlds,’ and together with the book’s narrator Jim says 'Treasure Planet,' And you know from the look on his face what’s in his heart, and that he's got to find it someday.”

_I guess that’s what the story’s about,_ thought Susie, ‘ _The loot of a thousand worlds’. I wonder if it’s like he expects, though, when he gets it?_ But she sort of thought that if it was how he thought, Meg maybe wouldn’t love the story as much, so she ran her fingers through hair in practiced motions she had missed and waited and listened to find out if she were right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Treasure Planet, which came out in 2002 and is one of the less widely known Disney films (part of a set of less traditional films including Lilo and Stitch and Atlantis that came out around the same time), is a retelling of Treasure Island, but set in a science fiction world with a unique historical-futuristic aesthetic mix. Considering it lines up with her age well, and its protagonist is a young punk boy dealing with not knowing who he is stuck at home in a small town with a single mom after his father walks out on them when he is young, it's a very likely choice for one of Meg Thomas's favorite films. The main character's theme, I'm Still Here, in particular fits her well. 
> 
> Detective Tapp doesn't have any family details discussed in the Saw film franchise, but he does have a canon son and wife in the video games, which aren't exactly main canon, but then, neither is Dead by Daylight. While in this world, even if their personalities were the exact same, the Saw video games would never take place (as Tapp would have ended up in the Entity's realm instead), I like the idea of Kara and Michael, and they fit his character well as relatives and a part of his life, so they stay. Saw is really a devastating film franchise—not a franchise of happy endings. So many people end up dead. Tapp’s really been through a lot. It's a little ironic that Meg Thomas has decided to befriend him, since while he's not a deadbeat dad, he's a bit of an absentee in his own son's life, which his son is pretty bitter about. 
> 
> Frank's backstory is a really interesting one, and was obviously released alongside Jeff's originally as a juxtaposition of two characters with very similarly bad home lives reacting very differently, which I love, but he's also interesting in comparison to Meg. Really, everything in the Legion's description, from their add-ons to their perk descriptions to their actual abilities, give the impression of a juvie bully pushed to the extreme and ended up at a bad end. He only ever killed one person before being taken, while he'd done lots of other illegal things, so the transition into killer for all of the Legion must have been a very unusual one. They were all sort of still fairly normal humans who had committed one unplanned murder together they hadn't even really had time to process when taken. That, combined with their much younger ages, really makes for an interesting picture of what becoming a killer for the Entity might have looked like.
> 
> It's interesting that the Legion and Tapp have abilities with almot synonymous names (Tenacity and Mad Grit). What's funny is that Tenacity is more straight-up determination, while Grit implies strength of character as well. But perk-wise, Tenacity is a skill focused on not giving up when on the verge of death, and Mad Grit allows the attacker not to be slowed down by distraction, so if anything the names would be more appropriate in the reverse. Adrenaline in a medical sense is the trigger for fight-or-flight responses to deal with threats and intense situations, so it will temporarily increase your strength, sometimes exponentially, decrease your ability to feel pain, and focus you mentally. Adrenaline, in Dead by Daylight, is a hell of an ability, and one of the most unique ones in the game. Unless you count skills like No Mither, it's also the only ability that allows you to auto-heal, and even then, it's the only instantaneous one. It seemed like seeing that happen to someone in front of you for the first time would be an either incredible or terrifying experience. 
> 
> I feel like that was already a lot, so that's it for research notes. As far as other stuff goes, thank you to everyone for the feedback, and I'm especially happy people liked Jeff, because he's such an amazing character in cannon I worked really hard trying to stay as true to that as possible. There are a couple heavy chapters soon, but quite a few lighter ones too, so hopefully it will balance out. I hope you all enjoy this one, despite it being a little on the heavier side. There's a lot of different chapter character mains and very different events coming soon I hope you all will enjoy. Thank you again for the continued support! It means the world.


	35. Common Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philip tries to come to terms with what he is, commits petty theft, and runs into a piece of his past.

_Philip Ojomo. Entry 14,622._

_There is a lot to think about. I want to write it down to look back on and help me to understand it myself, but I know I cannot do that. There are pages missing from my journals. I never noticed, because it is careful, and I was not looking. They are not torn out, they are simply gone. Chunks of time, things I could have used to tell myself what is real._

_I shall have to burn this when I am finished. I will not be able to read it again. No, burning it would be foolish in this place—the Alledjenu may take it as a gift. I shall have to tear it apart, or stain it so there are no markings left. Destroy it._

_But maybe the writing will help._

_I am very lost. That is why I want to do this—to write. It has always helped me think before, and at least it is familiar. I know how to do it, even if I have no skill. Everything else, I suddenly do not know how to do. These people I have hurt so many times have accepted me. It is more like they have taken me in. But I don’t understand it._

_This is worthless. I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know where to start._

_I am so lost._

_Apparently there are things I have forgotten. Not once, but many times, and not details, but whole pieces of my life here, of who I used to be. I have tried so hard, and long, so many times now, but I cannot remember any of them. It feels empty, and lost, and alone. I know there are things there that I cannot reach, and I want to, but they aren’t far away, they are gone. I just have fragments, and that, I am beginning to think, is worse than nothing at all._

_I don’t know who I am._

_Or who I was._

_Who I am supposed to be._

_In dreams, sometimes I see things I think I know for a moment. I can never remember them when I wake up, but I wake feeling sad, like there is someone I miss. There are not words to describe how much I fear not knowing what I have lost, or what I may have done in the past._

_These survivors now, I am so afraid to forget them. We are being careful, but everything feels thin, like it may break at any point, and if that happens, what becomes of me? Do I return to hunting them? Will they be able to bring me back if I do? And if that were to happen, would I have to start here again, trying to dig through the guilt of killing people who never deserved to be here at all, writing a page I knew I would have to destroy in a journal I used to find solace in? How many times have I already been here, alone, at what is neither the beginning nor the end of something terrible I don’t think I will ever be free from?_

_Gods, what can I do?_

_I can’t talk to anyone about this. There is no one who deserves to hear me. My only friends are the people I have killed. I cannot ask them to help me deal with the guilt of their own deaths. I don’t know what to say, or to do. It is all too much. They are so kind to me that it stings. How? After everything?_

_I am doing my best to be useful, since that at least is a thing I am able to do. I have gained some information, and with each new piece they seem to believe they are getting closer and closer to a chance at freedom, but I seem like so little a thing to have hope in. If this all falls through, and fails, have I become the biggest monster of us all—the thing which gave them the hope that betrayed them? I could not live with that. I already cannot live like things are now._

_It is painful to see them. Every trial is a nightmare. I do not know if I prefer ones where the Entity watches and I have to kill them like before, which is unbearable, or the ones where it is not and they greet me and treat me like a friend, which breaks me._

_I want to be forgiven, and I am selfish for it. I want to help them, which makes me fear that this is all a trap, because nothing good has ever come from my dreams or my life or at my hands._

_I am so alone._

_It has been a long time. Longer than I ever realized before. I came to this place in 1982, and they tell me it has been almost forty years._

_When I took the offer the…the thing, the Alledjenu or whatever it is gave me, I did not expect to be able to come back, but I did not think about the world outside, because it had not been too long yet, and I did not know what I would have had to have lost in only eight or ten years. I did not have to think about it yet. The others here talk of going home, back to the real world, to live again. I wish them well; I pray they do. I do not mourn that I cannot, because I do not think I would deserve it anymore. I wonder if I ever did. I think there was a time, once, when I was young. I believe I left home because I thought I would be able to find a better way to live. That is something anyone could deserve, isn’t it? To live?_

_But I am not that young man now. I am not even sure I am a man at all, beneath the mask. We have always known humanity is something you can lose, and surely after all I have done, I have lost mine._

_I do not have the right to return to a home like the others here do, but I think it is still fair for me to mourn those I will never see again. They did not change, I did, and I think they would have wished to see me. More people I have hurt, and the last I would ever wish to. I am so sorry. I know it does not matter, but I am, and I wish I could tell you that._

_Brother, I missed you. I did not write you because I had so little to say, and I wanted you to believe in the dream. But I should have. I hope you and Lami were happy. I hope you are still. Old, and grey, and finally wise now after so much life, with many grandchildren. Mother, I am sorry. I have always tried to be someone who did the right thing when he had a choice, but I think I have failed every time it came to it. I am glad you could never have known, because you would have told me it was not my fault, and you should never have had to forgive me for so much. Daima, you were right. I am sad. I hope you forgot that goodbye._

_How are humans supposed to live like this? I am so tired._

_But I have to go on. There are people I may still be able to help, and that at least is something. I have forgotten so many of our old laws, but maybe I can still find some sort of redemption. Even if it is too late, I should try. That, I can do. I can, so I must._

_But I don’t know how. Gods, Mother, I don’t know how. I am afraid to forget again. I am afraid I will get it wrong. I have to think, I have to find an answer, I cannot give up._

_I will still try._

_I am so sorry._

 

Try. He knew how to do that. It was the only thing he’d successfully done most of his life: keep trying. Philip thought about it a long time, alone in his garage. What that would look like.

These people he was trying to help, he could only do so much to bring them closer to escaping, if that were really possible. He had to be slow, careful approaching the Entity about things. There were places he could go, of course, but he’d explored the perimeter of his own little cage and the basement so many times now. What else was there that he could do to bring them answers?

The answer was probably plenty, but nothing fast.

So then, what—what to do with this enormous, crushing amount of time between trials, with nothing but the ghost of a place he once worked for company?

 _Think smaller,_ Philip told himself, _You are not that strong. Maybe you cannot break them out, but there must be things you can do. That is always how it is._

It was how it had been, back home. When he was little, he hadn’t been able to do much to help his mother pay for them to live, but he had been able to do small things. He could help around the house, he could bring her flowers, he could pick up odd jobs. As he got older, there had been more he could do, but most of the time, it hadn’t been much. There had never been much in his old life that anyone could do. He had brought presents when he could—little meaningless things. Sweets, a toy for Daima, a camera, a scarf. It had been the best he could do, but it had also mattered. It had given people happiness, even in small fragments; it had let them know they were loved. Mostly nothing but a gesture, but not an entirely empty one. Something to look forward to. He had been given similar things himself. A bracelet, a coat, a good meal. And then, in America, it was how he had kept himself alive. A beer after work, a better pair of boots, a cassette tape, a ticket to the movies.

 _There is nothing good like that here, though,_ thought Philip, looking around at the wreck of a building around him, _There is not even much I could make out of the things here. And it would be nothing they need._

What did they need?

Philip walked the garage slowly, running his hands over things, thinking about what he had, and what he could make, and if any of it were any good to the people he had met. _The boy must be using a cane by now, or I could have made him one,_ thought Philip, remembering Dwight’s semi-helplessness in trials, _So, that is no good either now._ The little girl needed shoes, but while Philip knew weaving and some smithing, he didn’t know how to do that.

 _At first you could think of nothing to do. Now you can, but it is all things you are no good at,_ thought Philip ruefully, laying on the roof of the half-repaired car in the center of the garage. _They have food, and you do not. They have tools, which you do not. And they at least have some shoes, which you also do not have at all,_ he added, looking at his bare feet, worn hard from rough use here, _I am not very useful._

He sighed, and lay there with an arm over his face, trying hard to think of anything else.

_Wait._

Philip sat up then, crouching on the hood of the car, thinking hard. _That would be dangerous, though. Huh. Would it? I could…_

He flicked his wrist and summoned the wailing bell and held it, tossing it up and catching it in a rhythm, thinking hard. _Yes, I might…And I’ve heard the horse, so he must be close. But the Entity might—no…the Entity barely notices different humans have different names with them, it would not notice that. Even if he did, the Entity wouldn’t care if he told it. I don’t think anyone would be stupid enough to tell the Entity about a theft—they would have to know it would not care. He would not know it was me, not if I was careful. And we used to go around to others’ areas. I used to see Evan sometimes—not on purpose, but we did. And Sally. I could have other reasons for trespassing if something went wrong. But can I go at all?_

They had told him that when Claudette and Dwight had taken him back with them through another killer’s area, it had been hard to get him past the boundary.

 _But he is not the same,_ thought Philip slowly, _He does not really have an area. The Clown passes through ours, and he is between me and Sally. Does that really count as his own place?_

Even if it did, he had gone into other killers’ areas before. But there were also some he knew he could not. Was that the Entity? Or was it because the killer didn’t want him there?

 _It does not want us to kill each other, I think,_ thought Philip slowly, trying to puzzle it out, _So, if I do not go to fight, weaponless maybe, then I may be able to get in? I could at least try. Or—_

He stopped and blinked, a thought hitting him suddenly. _No. It cannot be that easy._

Claudette had given him a key the last time he’d seen her, just in case he ever needed it. _This is hardly an emergency,_ thought Philip guiltily, taking the object out of his cloak pocket and looking down at the strangely powerful feeling piece of cool metal in his hand, _And they have very few of them. I should not waste it on this._

They had talked him through their use of keys, how certain items tied to it changed what it would be able to do, and what things allowed for what, which was not entirely different from how he adjusted his own powers for trials, but it had still been rather complicated. As far as he remembered, they used a piece of cloudy glass tied to the base of a key to keep it from shattering when used. Philip had plenty of glass, but he had a feeling boring a hole through a shattered chunk of a car window and tying it to the end of a key wasn’t going to do what he wanted.

 _What else, then?_ thought Philip, wracking his brain for information he felt like he should have had. _It must be hopeless,_ he thought after a minute of failing to come up with anything good, _I understand maybe even less of how the Entity uses its power than the victims do. I did not have to work to learn it—I had everything given to me. The only things I truly did on my own were just chunks of old magic, from before, used here to compliment what I’d been given._ _That is not even learning, it’s just remembering. I don’t know how the Entity’s power works._

He turned the key over in his hand.

_This is a skeleton key. Why is it a skeleton key? How many locks are there to open?_

Philip hadn’t paid too much attention before, but he did now. He’d never had to worry or care much about keys at all, but he knew what a skeleton key was, and what it looked like. The manager of his first apartment in the United States had had one so he could get into anyone’s place if he needed to, which had made Philip uncomfortable. The piece of metal in his hand was like a normal key, but flattened. No raised pattern customary of what one would think of as a ‘key,’ built to match a specific lock. It was gutted, or filed down, made to be able to get past wards on any warded lock, and open all of them.

 _You cheated,_ thought Philip, feeling almost proud of whoever had made the key, _You were not allowed to make a key that was perfect, because each lock is different. The odds of finding your perfect lock and perfect key would be impossible. It was meant to be this way, to stop people like you. So you cheated, I think, and you made a key that fit no locks, and every lock at once. A loophole. You bent the rules._

That was smart. That was so smart, and so simple at once. Philip wished his mind worked that way.

_Okay, think. Think—you do not know loopholes, and you do not know bending the Entity’s rules like the man who made this key did, but the Entity did not make the key or the things that go with it. That was a person. A person, you may be able to figure out. It takes holly symbols. Things people believe in. And it lets that be channeled into what it is supposed to do. After that, other people can copy the action—only the first person to do it needs to be real. A base. The mold for everything else._

He didn’t have anything of his own to use, though. They had always used paint or ink, and words, and music—few objects. Anything that might have fit into the category of ‘small religious object’ which he could have used wasn’t something he carried.

 _Would ink be enough?_ wondered Philip, thinking hard, _It works with the bell. What else do I have? I could make a belt, maybe, but I am not a priest or a shaman. That would be stupid. I am not qualified to do it. I should do something simpler—something that is supposed to work for people like me. Just something small, for protection. Something weak but genuine will give me a better chance, I think. Ink it is, then? I suppose the worst that can happen is I lose the key._

Philip drew the symbol in white—like a shield. Protection. That was hard to do on the key, because the key was extremely small, and even though he had a very limited supply of pigment to use, Philip erased what he was doing about ten times before he decided it was alright—inking it carefully on with a splinter of wood. He had marked his hatch the first time he came. It was invisible now, though, and Philip remembered only when he’d walked up to where it was supposed to be that he didn’t have an object to make it appear so he could use it at all. He stood there, looking down at the space where it had been for a moment.

 _Well…Damn it. Usually I do not leap over so much information in my hurry to reach a conclusion. This was stupid of me._ Glad no one had known he’d done this, Philip crouched by the hatch and considered.

 _What makes the hatch appear? For Quentin, it is his coin. His God. The original creator of the key must have had a way to use it at least as well as that, so what could that have been?_ Agitated, feeling for some reason like he was missing something very clear, Philip drummed his fingers against his knee.  _In a trial, the black lock will not appear until more generators have been lit than there are living people. One for the survivor, one for the lock, minimum? Is that it? Why? It is not electric, like the gate. It does not need energy from—_

Something clicked and he froze, like he might lose the thought if he moved.

_Light._

The hatch. The black lock. To be able to see it, you had to have light.

_Literal and metaphorical. And a flashlight will not cut it. I need light._

This was old magic. This was close to the things he used to know, but different. Like another dialect of a language with a similar base.

 _Okay, okay you’re close,_ thought Philip, pacing back and forth, _You are very close now. A flashlight will not work, but a generator and a coin with a god on it will. Why. Why? A flashlight is just a tool. The others promise things—a chance to get out. To go home, to see—_

He stopped again, and slowly, Philip held up his arm and looked at the bracelet he wore. Ever since Dwight had pointed it out, he had looked at the marking on the bracelet many times.

_Hope. Light. Dawn._

The sun. Literal and metaphorical. It was all of those.

Feeling for some reason almost unshakably sure it would work, and a little like he was in a dream, Philip walked back over to the car and got his jar of ink. He brought the little container with him to where he knew the black lock should be, and after a moment of consideration, he drew on his palm the symbol on his bracelet, and pressed his palm against the earth.

There was a sharp sting in his hand and he had to fight back the impulse to draw back as he felt something like burning, and below his hand the black lock appeared. Almost feverously quick, Philip snatched the key and turned it in the lock. The painted shield burned off the key like it would the wailing bell, and the key cracked and Philip flinched, expecting it to shatter, but the hatch opened and he got it out still in one piece and tore his hand free, staring at it and the burning red welt on his palm shakily.

 _I think I did something wrong,_ thought Philip, staring at the burn, _But at least it worked._ The symbol was clear on his skin, painful and rough and cracked with burns, but it was familiar. Uncannily. Shaking himself and not sure how long the thing would stay open, Philip quickly dropped inside.

The door shut behind him as soon as he was past the lock, and Philip was plunged into darkness. Darkness was fine though. Philip was used to it, and he had no worries about following the tunnels in the dark. He was quite certain it was going to take him where he wanted. Feeling blindly, Philip ran a hand along the wall to keep some kind of bearings and began to walk.

As he went along in silence, Philip opened and closed the burned hand, feeling the wound and thinking about the symbol on his bracelet.

“Did I know you?” asked Philip quietly, feeling the cool earthen wall under his fingertips and looking at it in the darkness like it could answer for its creator, “Are you someone else I have forgotten?”

There was no answer in the darkness, not even internally. No sense of security, or loss, or an answer. It made him sad, not because he was sure there was someone he had forgotten, but because he felt certain in that moment that if there had been, he was never going to be able to know even that he had lost them.

“I hope we knew each other,” said Philip, speaking to nothing in the shadows of the tunnels, “Your work was impressive. You would have been good to know.”

He began to walk again, feeling at home in the darkness. After a little walking—less even than he had expected, his fingers found the cold metal of rungs in front of him. _Already,_ thought Philip, looking up at a hatch he couldn’t see above, and then, before he could stop himself, _Here is hoping._

Philip grimaced, hoping that wasn’t a bad omen. Then, being as careful as he could, Philip cloaked, ascended the rungs, and opened the trapdoor.

It had worked. He wasn’t surprised, because he had thought it would, but the immediacy of what he was doing hit him suddenly, and he took a long, slow breath before climbing out the rest of the way and gently shutting the hatch behind him.

All around him where sets—attractions. Old, for some kind of carnival. A fortune telling doll, some tents. _Why pitch this?_ thought Philip, looking around for the cart, _You travel alone._

Maybe the bright colors and lights were meant to attract people who were still new—curious, hoping in something that looked so alive and familiar in the midst of the grey and green and murky blue of the rest of this world. _Only hunting the most unwary and vulnerable. Truly a predator,_ thought Philip with no admiration, edging towards the roof of the cart he had spotted.

The horse didn’t sense him as he got close. Philip could tell the difference, because he had been near it in trials before, and it would look at people it saw. He was always a little wary about animals spotting him when invisible, even though crows at least never did, because he felt certain that a cat would have. He wasn’t sure about horses, because he had not paid this one much attention in trials except to help him locate survivors hiding from him, but it didn’t seem to sense him.

 _Good,_ thought Philip, sliding past, towards the back of the cart, _Now where is your master?_

He had expected to see the man near, or to hear him inside the trailer, but neither had happened, and Philip paused by the entrance, uncertain.

 _Go in, you’re invisible. Just be careful. Even if he is in there, he must be doing something. No one sits silently staring at their doors just in case someone tries to sneak in,_ he chided.

Taking a slow, deep breath, Philip stepped lightly up the back stairs to the brightly colored cart. Usually, the front and the back of this thing were simply open archways, but now there was a long curtain made of some red fabric, reaching down to just above the baseboards and blowing gently in the wind, and the whole frame of the cart was larger than what he was used to seeing. _At least it is not a locked door,_ thought Philip. Still, it would be easy to be spotted moving a curtain, and he leaned forward and placed an ear against the wall and listened for sounds of life inside.

There was something. It took him a few seconds to realize what, but the sound was breathing. Heavy, and uneven, labored, but slow. _He is inside,_ thought Philip, slowly moving his head back from the wall. But doing what? Just sitting there?

 _As if you could talk,_ Philip told himself, _What do you do when you are not in trials? You sit and write or rest or take care of your blade. You are never further than a few yards from the garage._

He didn’t have all day to wait for the man to move, though, because the longer he stayed, the higher the chance the Entity would catch him doing something he was not supposed to, and he might be able to talk his way out of that, but this whole thing had been a bit of a foolhardy endeavor in the first place, and he didn’t want to take any extra unnecessary chances. _I should at least make sure it is really here,_ Philip decided, and he turned back to the curtain and leaned against the side of the cart by it and drew it back just a half an inch at the side and looked in, half expecting the Clown’s face to be right on the other side, looking back and grinning.

The Clown was not waiting, though. At first Philip didn’t see him at all, and then caught movement on a fold-out cot by the far wall and he recognized the large shape on it as a person.

 _Oh, thank the gods, he is asleep,_ Philip realized, letting out a silent breath and slipping quickly past the curtain into the trailer.

It smelled strange inside. Sharp, and pungent—chemicals that Philip found familiar, but couldn’t place, mixed with things he knew he had never smelled before at all, and beneath everything else, there was a smell he knew very well—of preservatives, and beneath it, the lingering smell of rotting meat.

Turning slowly, Philip gave the body on the cot a hard look to make sure it was really sleeping, and then took in the room around him. Along the walls were a large steamer trunk, a bureau, a corner table, the cot, various old circus posters, and a medicine cabinet. Every flat surface was covered with bottles and jars of various sizes, and labels Philip could barely read.

 _The trunk,_ thought Philip, not seeing what he was looking for, and he crossed to it and knelt beside it, casting a wary glance over his shoulder towards the sleeping man. There was a lock on the luggage trunk, but it had been left open, and Philip gave a silent thanks to whatever luck was on his side and carefully lifted the lid.

There were a lot of things inside—bottles of acid, bleach, chloroform, some makeup and various pieces of clothing, empty glass containers, a video tape with a label that assured Philip the contents were pornography, some old maps and fliers, feathers, an extra pair of clown shoes, which for a moment Philip genuinely considered stealing too, for the little girl, until he bent close enough to smell them—but he could tell at a glance that it did not hold what he had come looking for.

 _Damn it,_ thought Philip, closing the lid as quietly as he had opened it. He turned and looked around the room, hoping he had overlooked something, but none of the other containers were big enough to hold it. _Perhaps it is just gone,_ thought Philip, feeling his heart sink, _And this was for nothing._

It was likely. Philip had never spoken to the Clown, or seen him up close, but he had watched him from a distance at times, when their areas intersected, and he had thought that he seemed like the kind of man who kept souvenirs. So, he had hoped…

There was a horrible sound behind him, so jarring it took Philip a second to realize it was laughter. Low, guttural, but definitely a human voice, and immediately he froze, afraid to give his position away with movement, his eyes darting down towards his body to reassure himself he was invisible. He was, but the laughter kept going, unnerving and malicious and pleased in a way that felt dangerous, and as carefully as possible Philip turned his head towards the Clown to see if he had been spotted, body tense and readied to fight or flee.

The Clown was still in the bed, like before—barely moved at all. Philip hadn’t been wrong, though, the immense man was laughing, but his eyes were shut, and where the Clown had had a perfectly neutral expression before, a smile had spread across his pasty white face, showing yellowed teeth beneath it. Even a few feet away, Philip could see his eyes move quickly beneath their lids, and the Clown licked his lips and then moved them like he was saying something, but no sound came out.

 _Dreaming,_ thought Philip, and he felt his heartrate calm back down as his panic subsided, glad he didn’t have to know what the Clown might dream of to look like that. And then suddenly, turned towards the bed, Philip saw it. Underneath the cot, beside two boxes.

 _He did keep it!_ Elated and relieved, Philip stood up gingerly and stole towards it, pausing when he got within arm’s reach of the cot.

The Clown’s breathing was loud, and so labored it was hard for Philip to convince himself the man really was asleep. He reeked, something like alcohol and bile and sweat and chemicals, all mixed in with the smell of blood all the killers brought with them. _Even me._ Philip looked down at the sleeping man’s face, feeling a little sickened at the thought of their similarity. It didn’t really matter that they hunted differently, did it? They had both chased, and cornered, and killed, again and again. _Have I really become something like that?_ wondered Philip, catching sight of a key ring hanging from the man’s belt. On it hung human fingers, strung through like a gas station charm or decoration you might add beside your car key. It disgusted him and filled him with guilt at the same time. _We are not the same,_ Philip tried to reassure himself, stooping beside the bed as silently as a shadow, _I am far from blameless, but I was deceived, and I never took pleasure in it._

Was that true, though, he wondered as he moved one of the boxes under the cot aside, barely breathing for fear of waking the man above him. Philip had not enjoyed the killing, but there had been times when he had been so sure he was doing the right thing—that he was meeting out justice—and that feeling, he had liked. It had felt right. Maybe in some sick way they were the same. _I don’t want to be,_ thought Philip desperately, trying to convince himself he was wrong, _I am not a monster. I don’t have to be one anymore. I wanted vengeance, but I never wanted to hurt anyone._

But what could that matter to the people he had hurt? Really? No matter what they said.

His fingers closed around the thing he had come looking for, and Philip slowly drew the wooden guitar out from under the cot and held it in his hands, but he did not feel victorious or successful having gotten what he wanted. _It is so little,_ thought Philip looking down at the polished wood and pearl inlay, _I was a fool to think I could find any redemption in such a small gift._

Still, it was something that they would be glad to have back, and that mattered more than what it could bring him, so Philip took it and slung the strap over his shoulder, shifting the body of the instrument onto his back. Above, the Clown had stopped laughing, but the sick grin was still on his face, and Philip suddenly wanted to get out of the trailer as soon as he could. He couldn’t stand to be there any longer—to share space with something that made him think about the worst side of everything he had ever done.

He moved to push the boxes beneath the cot back into place, hoping to obscure any easy view from the outside of the missing guitar, and as he did, he lingered on an old and worn cigar box which smelled more strongly of chemicals than anything else Philip had seen. But underneath the smell was something else—something familiar. It was a smell Philip wished he did not know, and pulled along almost against his will by the near-certainty of what he would find inside, Philip reached for the box and opened it.

There were so many fingers inside that Philip would have had to take them out to have had a chance at counting them. Some old, some newer, and from the wrinkles and size of the appendages Philip was quite sure that was true in more ways than one. Varying shades, some with nail polish or calluses, some so small they could only ever have belonged to a child, and on top of the pile were fresh fingers. He couldn’t have possibly _known,_ not for sure, but from the size and shape and number, but Philip knew whose they were.

 _Is it not enough to kill them? You must keep part of their body as proof you had what you wanted?_ thought Philip, flooded with a sudden, intense anger, knowing the faces that went with the body parts in the box. And then he remembered his own weapon—his sickle, torn from the body of the man he had killed, and the rage vanished and left Philip with a deep, awful, hollow feeling instead.

He swallowed hard, trying not to think about anything at all, but unable to deafen the accusations in his head.

 _Do we not choose to be monsters?_ wondered Philip, feeling broken as he slowly closed the box and set it back under the cot. _Do we just become them when we are too weak, or too blind, or too stupid to stop?_ It was all so much. It was too much to live with. Philip couldn’t fix it, but he couldn’t face it either. He did not regret what he had done to Azarov—he couldn’t. The man had killed so many people; he had used him—he had made Philip a murderer. But where he stood here, now, in this instant, was far from that. He was soaked in blood, standing on a hill of the corpses he had left in his wake all on his own. Unfeeling, uncaring, unknowable to even himself. A stranger. What had been the line he had crossed; when had he done it? Was it the moment he had walked through a trial and brought his sickle down into someone’s chest? Or the first time someone completely at his mercy had begged for their life and he had not listened? Was it when the boy who reminded him of himself had asked not to die alone and he had walked away?

 _But those were not things that happened to you, they were all choices,_ thought Philip miserably, standing up and backing carefully towards the way out and away from the man on the cot he wanted suddenly to be as far from as possible for reasons that had nothing to do with physical danger, _You made them, again and again and again. You chose to be a monster, one little piece at a time. You did this._

 _No—I didn’t know,_ Philip argued desperately with himself, begging for some kind of conceding or sympathy or relenting from the voice in his head, _I thought what I was doing was right. Doesn’t that matter?_

 _Yes,_ he told himself, the voice in his head bitter and hollow, _But do you think human beings wake up in the morning planning to be the villain? That that is what the choice looks like to anyone?_ And he stopped at the edge of the cart, hand on the curtain, then turned and glanced back at the room around him one final time.

Yes, Philip had thought that. He had known, of course, that there were people who you lost a little at a time. Friends who made bad friends and changed, people who were desperate and went an inch after an inch further after survival or love or success until they had gone too far. But also there had always been a different sort of bad. The kinds of people who caused wars and led factions, who butchered their neighbors, or beat their daughter to death. And Philip had always believed—still could not stop believing—that they had very definitively chosen to be who they were, knowing full well somewhere deep down that what they were doing was wrong. He looked back at the drugs lining the cabinets and tables and thought about their purposes, about the ropes he had seen in the chest.

 _They must,_ Philip answered himself slowly, eyes returning to the man asleep on the cot, needing it to be true, _I think that they come up with reasons that it does not matter to them that they are the villain, that they can think what they do is right to them, but they do choose to play it, and know it. I have seen people who relish the choice. The power and the freedom that accompanies it._ Stepping outside the trailer and letting the drape shut behind himself, Philip felt empty. _Still. Another man’s motives does little to change my own guilt._

It was cool outside, and foggy as always. Quietly, Philip descended the steps back onto the grass in the dimly lit area outside the chapel and looked around, trying to find the right direction to walk to return to his own home, such as it was. Nearby, the corrupted corpse of a horse made an unhappy sound, restless, and turned and tried to lay its head against the ground. It always seemed to lay there against the cart—never walking around, never eating—unusual behavior for a horse. It had wounds all over it that looked more like decay and rot than something a human might have inflicted on it, and black blood dripped from its nose. Philip pitied it. He was tempted, for a moment, to try and bring it with him. But he knew he would fail at that, even if he could convince it to follow him, so he made himself turn away and begin walking, thinking about the box of fingers and the blade made out a spine waiting for him in his garage.

His eyes lingered on the chapel as he went, remembering a very different day in a place that was almost here. _And me? Who am I now?_ Philip didn’t know. He was so weary. Weary from asking himself this question. Weary from not knowing how to answer it. Weary from being afraid of not knowing what would come next, or how it would end.

 _I only ever meant to be a person,_ thought Philip desperately, _I know that I am nothing impressive, or strong, and I have no grand aspirations. My plans have all fallen through long ago, and most were dead before I even began to suspect they had failed. Maybe that is what I deserve. Maybe I am a monster, maybe I am just as bad as him, I don’t know. There is no one to ask but myself, and I have no answers._

Far enough away that the Clown would not hear him use the bell, Philip uncloaked and took the guitar off his shoulder and held it, looking at the smooth wood and the engraved scratch plate. Twisting flowers, so carefully carved, and pretty, and insignificant amidst all of this—this place, this hell. Nothing. Just a worthless pattern on a piece of wood. Easily lost, broken, forgotten. But they mattered to someone.

That was worth protecting, wasn’t it?

 _I don’t know who I am, but I am trying,_ thought Philip, running his hand along the pattern on the scratch plate, _I don’t want to hurt them anymore—that is a choice I can make, isn’t it? Whatever I have been, whatever I am, I can stop?_  He turned and gave the decrepit chapel a last, long look, trying to find hope in the forgiveness he had been offered here by the last people on earth who should have offered it to him.   _I know I have never been much,_ thought Philip, eyes on the cracked stained glass and thinking of the way the little girl had held his hand, _Maybe I am bad. I cannot be good. But I will not be a monster, if it kills me._

That was something. It was a goal. A thing to aim for. Not an identity maybe, but a choice. Trying to believe in that, he placed the instrument on his back again and adjusted it carefully, then returned to invisibility, bringing the guitar with him this time and melting completely into the dim green and grey of the chapel yard.

The walk out was slow and careful.

Philip was relatively sure he needed to go south, past the Clown’s trailer and left, to return to his garage. Feeling the weight of Kate’s guitar on his back as he walked, Philip thought how strange it was to feel anything carried in such a way. It had been a normal part of life for years—instruments, backpacks, goods, heavy coats—but it had become another thing which felt unnatural now, like he suspected shoes would. Like human touch did, or food, or voices which sounded with an emotion that was not fear or pain. Foreign now. The closest Philip had come to this basic human act in years was carrying the little girl on his shoulders. So different from forcing someone to a hook. No struggle, no fighting, no begging or screaming. He had almost forgot human contact could happen for reasons that were kind.

The memory made him feel happy and sad and guilty all at the same time. _They are far too forgiving,_ thought Philip, slipping in silence past trees and through high grass. He didn’t deserve it, he knew he didn’t, but it made him glad. His guilt was crushing, and he did not want to be forgiven so easily, but he knew he could not have lived without it. _I wish I could be worth it._

The chapel was fading in the distance, and Philip was being careful to skirt the asylum, hugging the edge of the woods and looking for a sign of his birch trees or the shape of the garage further in, when in the distance there was a sound Philip knew but couldn’t place, almost like the wind or maybe a bird, and he felt suddenly very uneasy.

Holding perfectly still so not even his outline would shimmer, Philip looked towards the asylum. There was a flicker in his vision like he was seeing two of something small, coming towards him very fast, and then Philip remembered the sound with absolute clarity.

_The Nurse._

He had come unarmed, because it seemed less risky to chance being caught by another reaper unarmed than to guess how the boundaries worked in relation to hostiles, but suddenly that was a decision he was regretting very much. He tried to reassure himself that this would probably be fine, because he had met her before, long ago, and as far as Philip could remember they had not been enemies, but ‘as far as Philip could remember’ had recently become very shaky grounds on which to believe anything. On top of that, while Philip remembered they had not been enemies, he also remembered that her grip on reality was shaky at best, and she was also the only one here who he couldn’t entirely hide from, because she moved through the spirit world like he did. Only, she did it for a moment at a time—leaping through it instead of inhabiting, like Philip, but nevertheless, every time she blinked through the spirit world, she was going to be able to see him.

 _Shit,_ thought Philip, watching the figure flickering in and out of his vision as his eyes saw her alternately in the material and then spirit world for fractions of a second at a time as she blinked towards him at high speed, _Shit, she’s seen me. She’s coming this way._

There was a moment of hesitation and indecision then, because he was very, very close to where the border of his own realm should be. He could stay and try to talk her out of fighting and go into combat unarmed if it came to that, or he could run.

Philip ran.

In the spirit world, Philip was faster than a normal person, tearing past underbrush in his rush to make it across his boundary. There should be nothing stopping him from _leaving_ her area, but she wouldn’t be able to follow him into his. If he could just make the border, he would be safe. And he was close—so close, only a little further.

She was faster than him, though, abusing the change in nature of the spirit world to warp physical distance and speed. To enter or exit the spirit world quickly was painful, and Philip thought it had to hurt for her to do what she was, rippling in and out of tares in the fabric of the two worlds behind him, steadily gaining ground—maybe that was why she screamed as she gave chase. But maybe she was angry.

Catching sight of the familiar broken roof of his home and realizing he’d misjudged his direction in the thick woods, Philip skidded around a tree, catching onto a branch as he went and using his moment to keep propelling himself forwards, towards the garage. She was only a few feet behind him now, shrieking and getting closer with each sound, each footstep. _Fuck, I’m not going to make it,_ Philip realized, hearing her breath at his back and seeing a change in the trees up ahead, but about twenty feet too far for him to reach in time, and he stopped, sliding a bit on the slick fallen leaves beneath his feet and turned to face her.

Not expecting him to stop, the ghost shot forward one blink too far, past him, then turned and blinked back. As she appeared before him, Philip quickly uncloaked and put up his hands.

“I am sorry for trespassing—I am leaving, and I am not armed. Not here to fight,” said Philip, trying to sound calming.

Opposite him, the Nurse was breathing hard, hand clutched to her chest, the other hand holding a rather lethal looking bone saw.

She was a harrowing figure, clad in a blood-spattered white hospital uniform, face tied down under a pillowcase secured around her neck, feet hanging limply in the air beneath her like a hung corpse’s. Adrenaline running high, Philip’s mind was working quickly, picking out options if it came to a fight. He could use the wailing bell defensively, but his best tactic would be to attempt to disarm her. Then she would have to choose between chasing him or going for her weapon. If he could knock it far enough away, he was fairly sure he could make it across his border before she got it back and caught up to him, and if she attacked him unarmed, she would be the one at great disadvantage. He was nervous, trying to think of something better in bullet time. Philip was good at tactical fighting, and while dying was unlikely, he recognized that he wasn’t likely to make it out of this undamaged, but that was fine—what he was worried about was breaking the guitar if they struggled.

“Philip?”

He knew her name, so it wasn’t surprising she knew his, but he hadn’t expected her to use it. Or to sound like she did. Like she couldn’t believe it was him.

It had been a long time. They had never been antagonistic towards each other. It wouldn’t have worked. Philip had no reason to hate her, and she was too vacant and volatile to dwell on or care who the other reapers were. He had told her his name, once, but he hadn’t expected her to remember. She had had no interest in talking to him at all. _Is she just surprised, because I have been gone so long?_ It didn’t really feel like that, but Philip didn’t know how to answer her, so he just said “Sally?” in a similar tone and waited to see what she would do, hoping this meant she would not want to fight.

It was hard to tell what was going on inside her—it had always been difficult, because he couldn’t see her face beneath the horrible pillow case tied around it to smother her.

She didn’t give him anything to work with, either. Just hung there in the air, floating opposite him, not saying or doing anything.

 _What do I do?_ wondered Philip, glancing over his shoulder towards the safety of the garage.

“You didn’t die,” said Sally finally, sounding at once happy and confused, which Philip had even less idea how to respond to.

“No,” said Philip after a beat, unsure what else to say.

Sally floated, breathing the only sound for a moment, and she tilted the white shape that was her head, “Why did you not come back?” she asked, lightly accented voice sounding more confused now, and almost hurt, sad even.

“I…” _Shit. Shit, what don’t I remember?_ His mind raced, wondering if he should just be honest and let her know he was missing memories, or if he should play along and try to bluff his way through this. He tried as fast as he could to guess how things might spiral—what the Entity could learn if he messed up, how much danger he might cause himself and others. _Don’t tell her, don’t bluff too hard. Don’t say anything stupid._ “I couldn’t,” said Philip, hoping such a vague answer would still be sufficient for her.

She watched him—or he thought she did, and her body language shifted. Uneasy suddenly, fidgeting.

 _I don’t remember anything with you at all,_ Philip thought desperately, _I remember speaking maybe a dozen times in passing, so long ago. But you can’t mean that. What happened that I don’t know?_ And then suddenly there was something else, something that he hadn’t considered before. The possibility to find that out. It was dangerous, and foolhardy, and he knew it—he knew it could get people hurt, but there was a burning desire in him suddenly to know what he had lost. He hadn’t thought there was anyone left who might be able to tell him.

 _Don’t do this,_ he told himself, _Let the past stay dead, or you might lose what you have now._ But that was so hard to believe, or to follow. There were so many pieces of him missing, so many empty, hollowed out fragments. He wanted to know who he was. Who he had been, and lost.

“You are Philip?” asked the Nurse, and her voice was strained and emotional and tense, like suddenly she couldn’t remember for sure herself.

“Yes,” said Philip gently, lowering his hands and adopting a more casual stance, careful to keep looking nonthreatening, “I am. Sally, what do you mean I did not ‘come back’—was I supposed to come back here for something?”

He regretted the words as soon as he said them, but deeper than that he felt relieved, and even deeper, afraid. Of what, he wasn’t sure.

“’Come back’?” repeated the Nurse, like she had already forgotten, “We…For…” one of her hands went to her head like it ached, “Why? Why. Oh. No—not that’s…Why… Why. –For me. Me? No…not…or…it was…You said. …Because you said you would,” she answered, having a little trouble. “You said…no. Yes, yes, you said…That you would come back,” she turned her head up like she was looking at him again, proud of herself for being able to answer.

“When?” asked Philip gently.

“You went without me,” answered Sally, sounding very quiet and small for a second, “Because I’m not sane.”

That struck Philip as a very painful thing to have to say to someone about yourself, and he was astounded that she knew it was true and that she would have said it to him.

“I went somewhere without you?” asked Philip, tilting his head,  “When was this? Where did I go?”

She thought about that, and her posture changed again, voice and movements getting more agitated every second. The Nurse held the saw up to her chest and clung to the handle nervously, fingers tapping against it as she tried to remember. “Where. Where. With the others,” said Sally, a bit anxious, “With your friends.”

_‘Friends?’_

“What friends?” prompted Philip, knowing he was pushing her too hard, but desperate to know.

“I don’t know,” said Sally sadly, then with a sudden, unexpected burst of clarity, “With the friends. The only ones. The alchemist, the mechanist, the chronicler.” She pointed at him. “And you.”

“Me?” asked Philip, racing through that. _‘Alchemist’? That doesn’t—_ “Souls? ” he asked Sally, “Or reapers?” he added, gesturing to himself and her on the second point.

“I don’t know,” said Sally, voice strained and irritated but a little hopeful at the same time, like she was interested by trying to figure it out, “Not like anyone. Like before.”

 _Like before?_ wondered Philip, _Like when you were alive?_

“But you didn’t come back,” said Sally, hurt, then angry. She floated a little closer, voice suddenly deeply hostile. “You didn’t come back!”

Philip took a careful step backwards, eye on the bone saw. “I did,” he said, voice gentle, trying to calm her, “Just now.”

“You were trying to leave!” said Sally desperately, and he could tell she was losing the weak grip on reality she’d been clinging to before.

“No,” protested Philip, voice still calm, “I was—”

“You were going to leave?” she said again, this time a question—hurt, disbelieving, betrayed. “Hiding and running. You said! Trespassing! You weren’t going to come back!”

“I-I’m sorry,” said Philip, backing up another step as she advanced, hands raised in an attempt at peace again, “Sally, I did not mean to leave you behind.”

“You did,” she accused, coming dangerously close, sounding like she might snap at any moment.

“I didn’t know,” said Philip, not wanting to fight, trying to make her believe him, “Or I would have come back. I promise, I did not abandon you. Before, I-I could not remember, but I am not leaving, I can stay and—”

“You forgot,” the Nurse wailed, half revelation, half accusation, “You left! You’re going to leave again! You were lying! They were lying! You’re lying now! It’s all wrong, it’s all wrong, it’s broken, it’s hurt! Stop it!” she shouted, voice fracturing and growing louder and louder, “You have to stop!”

“I’m not doing anything,” said Philip, confused and taking another few steps away as she kept coming at him, her grip on the saw tightening, “Stop—please. Sally, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re all here to hurt and to die and to hurt and to die!” said Sally, on a wild path of thought Philip could not follow, but that she clung to like an unshakable truth, “I have to end it—the suffering. Again, and again! And you! You failed! You leave and you don’t come back!” Something struck her with a sudden horror and she brandished the saw at him. “Did you kill them?!”

“Did I—?” asked Philip, taken aback, and she swung at him with the saw and caught off guard he barely managed to duck out of its path and fall back as she swung again. He summoned the wailing bell and deflected her third blow with it, but she swung again, and again, faster and faster, too hard to keep up with easily. Philip moved with the swings, wild and erratic as they were, deflecting and dodging and steadily backing, knowing he had to act fast or he was going to get unlucky, and then he saw a swing he could use and intentionally caught a blow in his shoulder, a little closer to his neck than he’d meant, and used the opening he’d created to slam the bell against her wrist. She cried out and dropped the weapon reflexively, and as she turned to go after it, Philip spun on his heel ran for the boundary.

Feet digging into the soft earth, he had barely made it five feet before he heard her blink behind him. _Shit._ She was going after him instead of the saw.

He turned to catch her lunge head-on to protect the guitar, shooting out an arm to try and catch himself when she hit so he wouldn’t fall on it and break it. She knocked into him and he turned and landed painfully on his left elbow in his effort not the crush the instrument, tucking and rolling half onto his side only about seven feet from where he thought the boundary was, the guitar unbroken, but her hands around his neck.

On top of him, the Nurse’s fingers clamped into his throat like a vice and dug in. It hurt, far more than he had expected, and suddenly his chest was panicking for air. Philip still had the bell in hand and he could have used that to bash against her skull, but even though she was trying to choke him to death, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to kill her—not even to risk it. He didn’t want to kill anyone ever again.

“Please, Sally,” Philip choked out, “Stop.”

How many times had he been on the other side of this? There was no chance she would listen. He had done this to so many people before, if only for a few seconds, but Philip had never been choked before himself, and he didn’t like it. It was an awful experience not to be able to breathe while your lungs fought to do what they knew should still have been possible. Her grip tightened, cutting off air and hurting in a way he knew would bruise, and sacrificing the use of his left arm to preserve the guitar, he put his right hand over her fingers and tried with everything he had to pry them off, not wanting to die, but not wanting to tear at her face or smash something against her head. Not wanting to hurt, not wanting to be hurt. Not wanting to kill, not wanting to be killed.

_She won’t stop. You have to stop her._

Philip knew the assessment was right, but he didn’t want it to be. He needed so badly for there to be a choice. Some other path than killing each other.

“I’m sorry,” choked out Philip, pleading and sorry and struggling with the hands at his throat, “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you again. Please, Sally. Please.”

She didn’t stop. Her grip tightened around his throat and it got much harder to speak. He felt himself starting feel sick, and weak. _You have to fight back, Philip, you’re going to die._

“Please,” he kept trying weakly, fighting every impulse in his body not to defend himself, “I am like you. I am broken, and lost, and not whole anymore. I didn’t forget, my memories were taken. Sally. Please.” He let go of her hand and let his own rest weakly against her arm, trying to direct it, not force it. Not struggling anymore. Letting himself be hurt. “You are still in there somewhere, aren’t you? A part? Please, Sally. We could be different. You are not a monster. You were glad to see me; you could let me go.”

Her whole body shuddered above him, and she stopped, not letting go of his neck but no longer applying hard pressure, and her hands twitched at his throat. “Are you still there, Philip?” she asked him, surprised, looking down through the white fabric that was always suffocating her.

“Yes,” said Philip, trying to breathe through the grip around his throat.

She let go. Beneath her, he gasped for air and coughed, trying to recover, head pounding painfully. She hesitated a moment, then slowly, Sally moved back, floating up into the air again.

After he felt like he would not fall if he tried to stand, Philip raised his right hand in a noncombative stance, afraid any wrong action would incite her to attack again, and slowly stood, using the tree to his left to help him bear his weight as he got to his feet.

“I’m not,” said Sally, watching him and sounding very sad. “Still here,” she added after a moment, not sure he’d understood, “But I liked that you say so. I miss that.” She moved back a little as he steadied himself and caught his breath, then gestured back towards the garage with her hand. “Go. I hope you make it this time.”

“I’m sorry,” said Philip again, voice hoarse, meaning it, “For whatever I have done to you.”

“You came here,” answered Sally, drifting backwards, away from him and towards the tall grey building waiting for her. “I hope they fix you, Philip,” she added, turning to go and pausing to look back at him over her shoulder.

“Wait—Can I not help you?” he asked, not wanting to just leave her. Alone.

“No,” said Sally, “No one can. Not this time. I will go back,” she added, motioning towards the asylum. She turned and started to float off, then hesitated and looked back. “You will remember?”

Philip wanted so badly to say yes, but he didn’t know, and he didn’t want to lie to her and let her down again. He wanted to stop hurting everyone around him. “I will try,” said Philip, pained, “I will remember as long as I can.”

Sally nodded, then paused and bent to retrieve her saw. She straightened up and looked back at him. “I will change again if you stay much longer. I change often. I may kill you. Go now.”

There was a sound somehow like the wind and a gasp and a cry all at once, and she blinked through the sky and was gone, back into the asylum, and the ripple she had left faded and Philip was alone.

Still in shock from everything that had happened, Philip hesitated, staring at the asylum. He had believed her when she said she would change again, and that information slowly set in, and when it did he turned and went the last few feet into the woods and crossed the boundary into his own prison.

When Philip was safely among birch trees and the familiar varied underbrush, he remembered the guitar and worriedly took it off his back and looked at it, fully expecting to find the stem cracked despite all of his efforts. But it was fine. Old, a little bit worn, and dusty—probably from the Clown—but undamaged. A well-worn, well-loved instrument. Philip wondered if he still knew how to play. There was no chance he would try to find out, though. It was Kate’s, and it was special, and that would be a horrible intrusion and a theft. It wasn’t for his hands.

 _Well, I did it,_ thought Philip, letting out a breath and looking around the familiar garage. But his thoughts weren’t really on the guitar, they were still back at the asylum. Now that he had a moment to breathe, there were so many things had been said that his mind was racing to keep pace with and interpret. _‘Come back’? I didn’t come back? When did I say to her that I would? And why would that be something I was made to forget? It doesn’t seem dangerous to have some companionship with another reaper—we were not forbidden to speak to one another. And I was with ‘friends’? An ‘alchemist,’ a ‘mechanist,’ a ‘chronicler’?—that is like a party for a science fiction adventure—how can that be the description for actual people, people I knew?_

Speeding through every memory of every human here he’d met, killer and survivor, Philip tore through details, trying to find a match. There was nothing. The closest thing to a ‘mechanist’ in his book would have been the boy called Jake, probably. Alchemist? There had been no alchemist—why would there have been? And no one wandering around with…no, but wait, there had been a man who carried journals even into trials, hadn’t there? Philip focused on that one potential hit and ran through it again, trying hard to recall. _A man. Yes. A writer._ Was that the same? It had been so long ago. Philip had assumed he was just dead now, and no matter how he focused, there were no strong memories at all. Just another soul, hunted and hung from a hook. _That can’t be what she meant, can it?_

She had told him there at the end that she hoped he made it “this time”. _This time?_ He knew the Nurse was crazy, and it could have meant anything, but the statement filled him with a terrible dread. Everything she had said did—and not only for the sense she gave him that he had known people here very closely before, but also for a reason he couldn’t place. Something in the way she had sounded when she’d asked him if he had killed them. Philip looked again at the little marking on his bracelet and tried so hard to remember. But he couldn’t. There was nothing there—like someone had torn a chunk of him out. Not buried, or hidden, but gone.

 _That isn’t fair. If I lived it, no matter how painful or awful or pointless it all was, shouldn’t I at least get to hold onto the memory?_ He felt empty, and tired then. And not just because of himself, because of Sally as well. Philip had pushed her too hard hoping for information, and it had hurt her, and been for nothing in the end, leaving him just with confusion and fears and questions he would not be able to remember the answers to.

Philip walked to the garage and sat down, holding the guitar in his lap and running his hands along the smooth wood. It had been a long time since Philip had heard music.

 _But Sally did let you go,_ he thought, and Philip looked back towards her area on impulse, knowing it was too far away to see anything, but thinking over what had happened. He had thought—he had _known_ that he would have to fight her, but she’d let him go. That was good—better than good. It was almost unbelievable to him. But it was also sad. It was sad because he wasn’t sure it was possible to put a human back together once they were as mentally shattered as that woman was, but he had seen that she was still trying, at least a little, deep down, and it didn’t seem fair. What was even worse was that she seemed to have some understanding of what she was. Philip wasn’t the same, and he knew that, but he understood how it felt to be broken and to know it, and it was very alone. It hurt to know the truth.

 _What are we?_ thought Philip again, _How did you come to be here, Sally? Why do you kill?_ Were they all sort of the same in this? No matter how they’d been collected, and groomed, tortured or lied to, hadn’t they all become the same thing? He had been afraid so earlier, holding the box of fingers, but, thoughts lingering on the Nurse, he was unsure.

Philip remembered the wound in his shoulder she’d given him then and reached up to feel it, drawing his fingers back bloody. Not a deep wound, though. Not a danger. It would be easy enough to patch—he at least had some cloth of his own to use for that—it would be easy to tear up the tarp, and he knew how to sew. There were going to be bruises on his neck for a little, but it didn’t hurt as much as he’d expected now that she had stopped, and the headache losing oxygen had given him was unpleasant, but maybe the pounding in his skull would relieve him from the thoughts that never stopped. Physical pain was better, more manageable. Neither wound he’d taken was life threatening, or even a real hinderance—just superficial reminders of ways he might have died. Of reasons he might have been forced to kill.

 _We are monsters, but some of us choose not to kill when given a choice,_ thought Philip, gingerly setting the guitar on the ground and moving to get something to stop the bleeding, _Does that mean there is something left—if not hope for us, then something?_

It wasn’t very reassuring, but it was a step. A point of differentiation. Philip bored a hole in a splinter of wood to use as a needle and pulled thread from the tarp, then moved and braced his shoulder against the garage wall and let the tip of the wood dig in and out of his skin, giving the thread a path to follow and pulling together the broken flesh, closing the wound. It hurt, but he took it silently, barely even registering it over his thoughts.

 _I am damaged,_ thought Philip, _And I have damaged others, more times than I can count. I know that what has happened to me does not excuse me for what I have done. I will have to try to face that. Some wounds can be stitched and healed, others take time, and some never leave you. I cannot expect most of mine to be so easy, and I may be too broken to be repaired, but I will have to try. To do the best with what I have, and am, and maybe that will be enough to let me find peace someday. If it is not, I will know at least that I did the best I was able. That is weak comfort, but surely not nothing. Right? There is…there has to be meaning in that. At least a little._

It was all he had. He was not like the Clown, and he recognized more in her, but he was not like Sally either. Not like the people trapped here, or the people back home. Not like Azarov, or his brother, or even himself anymore. But it would be something, at least, to try to act like a human being again. There was a faint chance in that of comfort, or peace, or maybe even redemption.

Tying off the wound, Philip took a breath and tried to ground himself. To stop wondering and fearing and find something solid to hold onto. It was hard to do. Looking around his garage, his gaze rested again on the tarp, and he paused and looked down at the makeshift needle in his hand.

_There._

Something he knew how to do. Something that might be good. Something about which he had a choice.

_There is something you can do._

So he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both the key and map, when used to locate things, suffer consumption, or 'burning'. It’s sort of a form of sacrifice, as everything that can be used in the Entity’s realm requires some combination of belief, prior skill, gained understanding, and sacrifice—and most commonly one of the others paired with sacrifice. To use something to accomplish a task, like a map locating items or a key opening locks, something has to be given up. Philip didn’t exactly do anything wrong when using a holy symbol and his ink to force the hatch to appear, he just used his skin as the medium for the exchange, in the way someone would usually use a map, so the thing that suffered burning/consumption/sacrifice was his hand.  
> The Clown is one of the especially disgusting killers, and canonically the single most willing to jump on the bandwagon and hunt for the Entity. He doesn't get discussed as much as Freddy or the Doctor when it comes to torture, but he's up a similar alley, drugging and then torturing people of all ages and sexes regularly in his trailer before killing them and keeping a piece of their body as a souvenir. The Nurse, on the other hand, is often considered one of the more sympathetic killers, as she completely lost her mind completely after years of abuse working in an asylum and completely mentally snapped before killing more than fifty people in an attempt of mixed justice, purification, and ending of their suffering, rather than having made a fully rational, conscious choice to be a murderer. In contrast to the Clown, who was offered accommodation for his easy cooperation (such as getting to keep his horse Maurice), she's also one of the more sadistically gifted by the Entity, as canonically her blink ability is something she is forced to rely on constantly in trials, but very physically painful to do. They're an interesting juxtaposition--sick and sick, but with different definitions of the word. And then there's Philip.
> 
> I know I say this every time, but it is genuinely fun and exciting every time people read and are interested, and it makes me very happy, so thank you all again. It probably gets a little repetitive hearing me say this every time, but you all and all of the feedback and support mean a ton to me. This is one of my favorite things I do. Lots of action soon and I think one more chapter that's more of a downbeat first, but we're getting a bit closer to the end. Not home stretch or anything yet, but it's exciting for me. Thank you again to everyone who reads!


	36. Rancor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam and Ace come up with a plan. Adam works through some things.

Steam. A hissing like a tea kettle.

But not this time. Adam pitched forward into the man in front of him and felt his heart lurch as everything flipped. The motion was sickeningly fast and impossibly slow at the same time, his mind holding onto and replaying images for seconds alongside the new information it gathered as the train flipped and the force knocked him against a window.

There were people screaming. Bodies hitting metal, hitting glass, hitting luggage, hitting bodies. Things broke, metal screeched against metal.

He didn’t know if he would die. Adam only had time to understand what was going on, not to feel about it—anything but whatever emotion might go alongside adrenaline. Tension, readiness, a moment of prepared reaction. Then there was a door tearing free opposite him, coming towards the terrified young woman who’d hit the glass beside him, and Adam moved. He rolled over and threw himself on top of her, body braced against death or injury and the insurmountable pain that was sure to follow.

In a way, he supposed it had.

Rails hissing, heat from friction. Then he recognized what he was hearing was just a teapot, and the panic in his chest died down, and Adam sat up, rubbing his eyes and stretching, to look around his dorm room.

_I can’t have fallen asleep with tea boiling._

That would be ridiculously irresponsible. He could have set something on fire. Adam lifted the thick grey comforter and slipped his feet over the side of the bed. The wood floor was cold to the touch, but not painfully. Just something to help him wake up a little.

“If you want to break in and use my tea, you have to stop it from whistling when it boils, or I will always wake up,” Adam said to the corner of his room by the closet—the only blind spot in the whole small, square-ish place.

The face he had been expecting peeked out at him from the corner of the room, curly brown hair just shy of shoulder length and only mostly apologetic brown eyes, which met his.

“Sorry.”

Adam waved a dismissive hand and looked down at himself, checking to reassure that he was wearing his pants from last night and an undershirt still. He had taken to never sleeping in less than pajamas after coming to terms with how often his room was going to be somewhat burgled here.

“You could knock and ask, like anyone else,” said Adam, cracking his neck and leaning forward to get a better look at her.

“But you’re not in the coed dorm—if I knock to get in, people would get the wrong idea, and we’ll get in trouble,” said Camia, coming out of the corner she’d been in.

“Then you could wake me up,” replied Adam, dissatisfied, “One of these days I’m going to get stabbed because I assume a burglar is you.”

“I didn’t need you to wake up, though,” she protested, moving over to the hotplate with the teakettle on top of it and picking it up, “Just this.” She turned and grinned at him, gesturing to the teapot like she was trying to sell it at an open market.

“Then buy your own,” said Adam, checking his watch. _5 AM. Ugh. I can’t justify just throwing her out and going back to sleep, because I have to be up in an hour anyway._

“But if I buy my own, then I would need to come up with an entirely new excuse to come in here,” said Camia, pouring herself a cup of tea in one of his mugs.

“Wait,” said Adam, shifting to lean on one arm, “You just said you needed the tea and not me. But you need the tea to have an excuse to talk with me? How solidly have you become acquainted with logical fallacies?”

“Pretty stably,” grinned Camia, taking her cup of tea and leaning against the little desk opposite his bed, “But I committed less of them than you think I did.”

“Really,” said Adam, leaning forward, “Explain.”

“Well,” said Camia, taking a sip, “If I wake you up in the middle of the night to talk, I’m an uncaring bastard for taking away your sleep and your time. _But,_ if I agree with myself beforehand to break in and make tea and _only_ talk to you if you wake up anyway, I’m—well, I’m still a selfish bastard, but with some very minimal standards, so less bad. The system works; I give you chances to sleep, and me to be a good person, all depending on how the cards fall. It’s like a moral Russian roulette.”

“And you think that a boiling tea kettle is a fair luck-based Russian roulette scenario to choose,” asked Adam pointedly.

“I never said the odds were good,” said Camia, looking at him over the top of her mug, “It’s Russian roulette. Only six chambers in most guns. That’s not many negatives before you get a hit, even if your luck is great.”

“Don’t they spin the chamber between pulls?” asked Adam, standing up and crossing to the teapot himself. _Might as well. I’m up anyway._

“Depends,” said Camia, watching him.

“On?” he asked, turning back towards her with the kettle in hand.

“On if they really want to die,” she replied.

 _A bit morbid for you,_ thought Adam, a little unsettled, but letting the thought pass. In truth, this wasn’t very unusual. This practice of sneaking over to his place to talk had started rather on accident. Camia had been dating one of his close friends for about a year now, and when sneaking home from a late-night rendezvous with him in a dorm she wasn’t supposed to be in, she’d run into Adam in the halls when staff were making unexpected rounds, and he’d offered the temporary refuge of his room until it was safe to make it the rest of the way out of the building. Usually, Adam wouldn’t have gotten involved in someone else’s drama—even one of his friends (at least, unless they’d really needed him), but it had been such an easy, simple, quick thing to do. The first time, she’d stayed for about an hour longer than she needed to, chatting with him. He hadn’t really minded, because while she’d talked a little bit about herself and Reggie, she’d mostly been genuinely interested in what he’d been working on at the time, which was a short paper that would eventually become the beginnings of the cultural heritage study research project he was working on now, in his last year. It had been nice to talk shop with someone, such as ‘talking shop’ was for Adam.

Not too long after, Reggie and she had had a fight, and, distraught and seeking comfort, she’d dropped in unexpectedly on her way out. Fortunately for her and unfortunately for Adam, the dorm security in the half of the building that hadn’t been renovated yet was about as good as a generic bedroom door lock might have been, which was great for you if you got locked out without your key but at least had a credit card on you, and not so fun to think about when trying to sleep at night.

He’d almost had a heart attack when he’d woken up to someone in his room the first time, and thrown a book at her head before realizing who she was, which had been mortifying, but she’d laughed it off, and Adam had been able to tell right away that she’d been crying, so he’d let her stay and talk for a little instead of getting angry and kicking her out.

These visits didn’t happen often, but at least once or twice a month, depending on how things were going with Reggie. Adam _definitely_ hadn’t meant to become her relationship counselor, or to be involved in her relationship with one of his friends at all, but it was sort of instinctive for him to answer sincere questions from anyone with good advice and knowledge when and if he had it, even when he probably should have known doing so was stupid. Besides, Camia wasn’t a bad person. She had no decent grasp on personal boundaries, obviously, and Adam had woken up in a cold sweat sure he was about to be murdered more than once because of something stupid Reggie had said that had broken her heart, but she usually bought him some kind of stupid yet thoughtful thank-you gift for letting her talk his ear off for an hour or so, like a fruit basket, or a collector’s edition of a book she’d seen in his room, and he appreciated that her impulsive intrusions were balanced out by the odd, eccentric thoughtfulness.

“Fine,” said Adam with a shrug, giving in. He walked over to the bed and sat down on the floor, using it like the backrest of a chair, and patted the ground beside him for her to come over and sit, “What has he done this time?”

“No,” said Camia, coming over to join him, half-drunk cup of tea in her hands, “We always start with that. How about you. Anything new in your life? Handling the flu outbreak okay? I heard it took out almost the entire English department last week.”

He glanced over at her, trying to tell if the interest was genuine, ready to crack a joke about getting bonus points from his professors for being one of four students not dead to rights last Friday, and trying to tell if that was appropriate for her mood. It was hard to tell. She looked calmer than usual, relatively normal, except that she was wearing a teal tanktop and shorts with no shoes.

_That’s odd—did she leave his room without getting them? She can’t have walked here across campus like that._

But she didn’t look like she’d been crying. That was what got him. Every time she’d come here, he’d been able to tell she’d been crying, but not this time.

“It’s, uh, incentive to breathe less,” replied Adam, mentally kicking himself a second later when he realized how stupid that sounded and that it hadn’t been funny enough to count as a joke. “But classes are fine,” he added, trying to save face, “Now go on. You had something you wanted to talk about—played moral roulette and I lost. So what’s on your mind?”

“I don’t know,” said Camia, hiding behind her mug and looking away.

“You don’t know?” repeated Adam, leaning to get a better look at her.

She shrugged.

“Are you okay?” he asked, genuinely a little concerned, because not talking was unusual for her.

“You know Hollie?” she asked, glancing over at him, “Was dating Marcus?”

He did. Even though he didn’t spend a whole lot of time out on the town with friends because his studies took so much of his time, they all went places together on occasion and he’d met her several times. She had seemed a little too impulsive to him, and that was coming from someone who genuinely enjoyed at least most of his time with Camia.

Adam nodded.

“He left me for her last week,” said Camia, taking a sip out of the mug, “But I didn’t know until tonight.”

 _Oh. God damn it, Reggie._ What the hell was he thinking? Adam looked over at Camia, who was looking into her mug.

_Shit, what am I supposed to say to her? ‘Fuck Reggie—he treated you like shit, find someone better’? ‘I’m so sorry?’ ‘Are you doing okay?’_

His middle guess seemed the most correct to him, so he put a hand on her shoulder and said, “I’m so sorry.”

She looked over at him then, eyes glossy with the struggle of not crying. Camia shrugged. “He would have done it sooner or later. Good to know it sooner. I just wish it had been a year ago.” Her voice cracked on ‘wish’ and she swallowed hard. “Sorry,” she said, wiping at her eyes, trying to eliminate the need to cry before she really did it, “Just, my only friends here are Reggie’s friends or Hollie’s, so. Well,” she added, laughing and crying a little at the same time, “I guess you’re Reggie’s.”

“I’m sorry,” said Adam again, meaning it. He hadn’t had time for dating, or the inclination. Too many plans, too much future to shoot for. But he knew how important it was to the people around them, how crushed people were when someone broke their heart. _God fucking damn it, Reggie you bastard._

“I just don’t really know what I’m supposed to do,” said Camia, crying, “And I thought, ‘Adam always knows—he’s smart. He’s too smart to get bogged down in all this highschool shit everyone else is doing in college. Maybe he knows,’ and I really didn’t want to go home to the girls at the dorm, and,” she shrugged hopelessly and looked over at him, then made an attempt at a smile, wiping her nose on her arm, “I think we both lost at roulette this time.”

 _Yeah,_ thought Adam sympathetically, _I think so._

“Look,” he said out loud, “I know you feel terrible right now, and you have every right to, but it will get better. You know that, right?”

She shrugged again.

 _Yeah, that line is never that effective,_ thought Adam, trying to find something better to say.

“Reggie and you fought a lot,” continued Adam after a moment, thinking through things half-seconds before he said them but doing his best, “Every time I’ve asked you if you were sure you were happy with him, you would talk about things he did that proved he loved you, but those were all a long time ago, when you first started dating. Maybe he just wasn’t who you thought he was.”

“I know,” moaned Camia, clutching her arms around herself, and banging her head against the mattress behind her, “I’m such a fucking idiot.”

 _Shit._ “No,” said Adam, trying to console her, “Camia—A lot of the time, people change when you get to know them better. Sometimes for the worse, sometimes better. But believing the best of someone you loved doesn’t make you an idiot. Everyone does that from time to time. With family, with friends, with lovers.”

“I thought with him I was going to be happy,” said Camia, meeting Adam’s eyes. She looked so heartbroken. “I thought I made him happy. I don’t know where I fucked up. We fought for half an hour and all he told me was I just ‘wasn’t right’ for him. How am I supposed to fix that?” she asked desperately, “How am I supposed to fix ‘not right’—I don’t even know what it means.”

“It means he didn’t have a good reason,” said Adam gently, hand still on her shoulder, “You don’t have to fix what you are.”

“Then what?” she said hopelessly, tears streaming down her face.

This was a hard question for him to answer, because he’d never depended on romance like she did. Maybe that was the problem. _Yes, that’s not a bad idea. She’s smart. She loves music and literature._ “Just find something else you love,” said Adam, smiling at her reassuringly, “You are an intelligent woman. You enjoy most of your studies. I know you have a passion for music theory and composition, for literature, journalism. It will not make you happy in the way a person does, but it won’t break your heart like that either.”

She smiled at that, then the smile faded, and she slowly shook her head. “It wouldn’t be the same. Nothing I like needs me,” said Camia softly.

“You don’t need something to depend on you for it to be worth your time,” said Adam, gesturing to his stack of books, “Do you think I will be the only teacher out there, or the only person who could write a cultural heritage study that no one will probably ever read? I do it because I love it, and because I can create things I appreciate with it. Someday I will help people learn skills that will help them with the things they do. I am not the only one who could do this, but I am going to, and I am already glad to know I will. It’s who I am.”

“You’re really happy just learning and teaching?” asked Camia, watching him with still-glossy eyes.

“Yes,” said Adam, meaning it, “I found what I am passionate about, and it is almost always stressful and busy and tiring, but I really do love doing it.”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling slowly, “I know you do. I can see it in your face. Maybe you’re right.”

Adam smiled back, very relieved he’d been able to help her.

“Thank you,” said Camia, leaning her head against his shoulder, “You’re always there for me when I need it, even though I don’t give you much in exchange.”

“Well, I like the fruit baskets,” offered Adam, smiling.

She laughed, and turned her head up to look at him. “You’re right, you know,” she said after a moment, “People who love you don’t act like Reggie. They’re there for you. Even when it’s hard, or when they have to tell you you’ve been stupid. People like you.”

Moving in the dim moonlight of his dorm, Camia shifted so she was facing him and placed a hand on his chest. Adam looked down at the hand in surprise, but he barely had a moment to register what was happening before she leaned up and kissed him.

He was caught so completely off-guard that at first he didn’t do anything. Adam felt her lips on his and her hand on his chest, and then she broke the kiss, smiling at him. “I should have known this a long time ago,” said Camia, reaching a hand behind his head and then pulling her lips back against his and he felt her breasts press against his chest as she leaned into the motion, and then her tongue in his mouth, and what was happening made the full circuit in his brain and Adam pulled back and put his hands on her arms to stop her from following with him when she tried to.

“Camia,” he said, trying not to let the shock and confusion he was feeling into his voice.

“It’s okay,” she said, smiling at him, “We can be quiet. I wouldn’t get you in trouble.”

His mind was reeling, trying to process information and give him the best responses to it quickly, but it was too unexpected and he wasn’t thinking fast enough.

“You don’t want this,” said Adam, meeting her eyes in the moonlight, “You’re just sad, because of Reggie.”

“You’re wrong,” said Camia, trying to get past his hold on her arms and closer to him again, “I do want it. I want you.”

He wasn’t using much force to stop her, so she broke his grip on her arms and laced her hands around his head and neck, pulling him into another kiss. Recovering faster this time, Adam struggled free and held her back at arm’s length again, grip tighter.

“Stop—Camia, stop it!” he said more forcefully, “I don’t want this.”

She had been halfway to saying something in protest, but she stopped then, and her face crumpled. “Oh,” she said after a second, arms slackening at her side.

After a second to make sure she meant it, he let go of her, and Camia slumped against the side of the bed, looking more miserable than he’d ever seen her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered after a second, afraid to look over, “I thought you did. But no one does.”

Adam took a long breath, still trying to calm his heartrate—to actually think through what had just happened, to understand it. He looked over at her as his panic began to subside a little.

“Not no one,” said Adam, “Just not me. I like you as a friend. Just because I don’t want you like this doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”

She stole a look in his direction, then turned away again.

“This would be wrong. You just had your heart broken,” continued Adam, his pulse finally slowing to something manageable, “You don’t really want me either. You’re just lonely, and sad.”

“I want you,” said Camia again, sounding miserable, “I want anyone I might believe really loves me.”

Adam looked away, holding onto that thought. _It’s not so easy, being alive. We are all alone, and we all want someone to make us feel like we matter. I’m forgetting, my experiences are not universal._ “You are going to have to learn to love yourself, then,” said Adam, looking back at her, voice sympathetic, not harsh, “Life is too hard to live through without loving yourself and knowing who you are. Neither is easy at first, but you’re a tough girl,” he added, hesitating in what had been a motion to give her a light, friendly punch to the shoulder, second-guessed by an anxiety about establishing any physical contact right now, “You owe it to yourself at least to try,” he continued, lowering the arm, “You can never be truly fair to yourself or anyone else until you do.”

“You always say smart things I don’t like,” said Camia, turning to look at him finally, smiling a little sadly. “You really think it’s not good enough to just love someone back?”

Adam shrugged. “If I depend on their love to keep me up and they depend on mine, what are the odds we are going to be carrying equal burdens? I wouldn’t want to break down someone I love.”

“I don’t like that very much,” said Camia, wiping tears off her cheek with a thumb and smiling at herself because she knew how it sounded.

“I don’t like it that much either,” said Adam, smiling back gently, “But I am afraid that, to the best of my knowledge, it’s the truth.”

They were quiet for a second, staring at the sparse room and the books piled around it.

“I care about you,” said Adam after a minute, looking over at Camia, voice gentle, “But you know you have to go, right?”

She nodded. He stood and offered her a hand, which she took.

“Here,” said Adam, opening his closet and taking out a pair of shoes, “I can at least give you this.”

She took the rain boots and slid them on, then walked with him to the door and watched as he opened it for her. They stood there for a moment, hesitating in the doorway.

“I didn’t think about it,” said Camia, looking up at him, “But I’m not a good friend. I do care about you, but I show that mostly by taking your time and paying you back with bribes. And I’m sorry. You’re a better person than me, you know that?”

He started to reply, but she held up a finger, cutting him off.

“No, let me have the last word on that one. I never let you talk enough, so let’s leave this as the one time that was a good thing, okay?” she asked, smiling.

Adam considered protesting, then caught the disapproving look she was giving him, sighed and nodded.

“I’ll see you around,” said Camia, stepping outside, “But, not like this again.”

Adam nodded. “Good luck. Try to get some rest.”

“Yeah,” she replied, “And thank you.”

Adam watched her disappear down the exterior hall, his rain boots making a quiet tap with each step as she faded from view, leaving him with forty minutes to get ready for his first of three morning exams.

 

A hissing.

Not like steam, not like rails. Like whispers.

Adam was so cold. He couldn’t even shiver. It was like being dead. Being a frozen corpse on a mountainside, only there was no pain in the death. It was exhaustion, and the kind of near-pain and confusion and fear that went with deep, deep cold.

He tried to move his fingers, tried to breathe, or remember where he was. What had happened to the train.

 _I’m dead?_ he wondered, afraid of the thought and relieved that death had been less awful than he had always imagined.

But he wasn’t dead. Not yet. He felt the cold seeping through his veins, and he tried again to breathe, but the ice overtook him. All around him was nothing but fog, or smoke. Some deep, inky darkness. And there was warmth in the darkness, and unable to move or think or do anything but be vaguely aware that the sounds of the deaths all around him in the crash were gone and there was something warm close by that he could not quite reach, Adam blacked out.

When he woke up, groggy and stiff and disoriented, Adam was laying face-down in a little nearly-dry streambed. He stumbled to his feet, scared and tense, and tried to understand where he was.

As far as he could see in any direction, there was nothing but tall bamboo, large rocks, and old wood structures. A Japanese garden that had gone into decay.

_Was I mugged? Or—or drugged, and sick? The train wrecked, didn’t it? We derailed._

He thought to check his body then, looking down for signs of injury, but there were none, and when he checked for his wallet, there it was.  _Phone._ Adam saw he had no service before he tried to dial, but he did it anyway. You never know—it wouldn’t hurt to try. Nothing happened, though. The phone game him a sad message that it had not been able to deliver on what he had hoped, and Adam slid the phone back into his pocket.

_Okay. Okay, don’t panic. Think about what happened. Maybe the train was a dream? That is the most logical, right? So then, this probably is a dream too. Try to wake up._

He did. First just concentrating, then pinching and smacking himself. None of it worked.

 _Okay,_ thought Adam a little more worriedly, _This is fine. There’s no one here. You have your things, you aren’t injured. Maybe you drank something or ate something and got sick, or drugged, and you walked here and can’t remember it. It’s just a garden. If you were grabbed and taken here, there would be people here with you, and you would probably be hurt—at least your money would be gone. But it’s not. So, you must have walked here and you can’t remember it, which is not great news, but you can’t have walked that far, so just walk back, and into a hospital, and you will be fine._

A little more nervous now, Adam checked himself for injuries again—just in case, especially his head. Nothing.

Mustering some courage, he started to walk, making his best guess from the part of the layout of the garden he could see where the entrance might be.

He hadn’t gone very far when he heard a human voice.

Adam froze in his tracks—afraid on animal instinct at first because of the presence of anyone else out here, under these circumstances, and then cautious and concerned when his brain kicked in half a second later.

It was a girl, crying.

Even more confused, and cautious now, Adam turned towards the sound and started forward, sliding through the bamboo. _This could be a trap,_ his mind warned him. _Oh, of what?_ thought Adam, _Nobody has to lure me somewhere to kill me. I was unconscious until five minutes ago. There’s someone crying who needs help. I have to go._

There was a little pagoda up ahead, and as he moved around a large boulder he saw that there was a girl slumped against one of the far walls, sitting on her knees with her hair in her face. He could hear her sniffling beneath the hair.

Adam took a few steps towards her, and then paused in surprise as her hair started to blow frantically about her, like she was in the middle of a full-blown gale.

 _That’s not normal,_ thought Adam, watching the har nervously. There was wind, but her hair was blowing way too much—like a storm, or even almost like she was underwater—not in a gentle breeze. _Am I hallucinating?_

The wind blew her hair up and behind her, away from where it had been, covering her body, and Adam blanched, taking in the sight with horror.

It was dark, but he could see enough. The girl was mostly naked, nothing but weak bandages or some kind of body wraps around her breasts and hips, and her mangled skin was so blue he thought she had to have been nearly asphyxiated or hypothermic. Like a corpse. Just as worryingly, there were massive chunks of glass sticking out of her shoulders and legs, and a chunk missing from her left side, like someone had taken a meat cleaver to it.

Adam’s body went into action, taking him to the little shelter and up the steps as fast as he could. He didn’t know if he were hallucinating, or dead, or what, but if this was real and the girl was this injured, she would be dead in under a minute if nothing changed.

She looked up and stopped crying when she heard him pounding up the wood steps, and turned her head to face him.

“It’s okay,” said Adam, holding up a hand as he rushed over, “I’m going to help you.” He barely got the last word out as they met eyes. Or, what she had for eyes, and Adam’s body froze—hesitating—thousands of years of human superstition from every corner of the world begging him to turn his stupid ass around and immediately run the other direction, as hard, fast, and far as he could, and then go into hiding as long as possible.

Her eyes were pure white—like a possessed woman from Hollywood cinema, or any illustration you might find of a demon, or a ghost. And there were chunks of her arms that were detached, just floating together like a normal arm, but with space between where they’d been sliced through.

 _Ahhh—this. is. a bad ghost. Adam, run,_ his brain told him quietly, taking in the inhuman features, the supernatural floating wounds, the wild hair, _Because if you don’t and you’re not already dead, you’re going to be._

 _No,_ Adam told himself, deeply terrified, _I have to be hallucinating._ He didn’t really buy it.

The girl’s face had been neutral when she’d first looked at him, but it shifted, suddenly heartbroken and scared. She whimpered, recoiling from his presence.

 _S-see. She’s—just a girl. You have to have been drugged—some kind of hallucinogenic._ He forced his frozen legs to take a half a step towards her again, willing himself back into action, _Try to help her._

It was difficult, because she was an extraordinarily horrifying thing to look at, but Adam kept going, careful to try not to scare her. “It’s okay—I won’t hurt you,” he said, kneeling beside her and starting to take off his coat. “Here, you must be—” He had been going to say ‘cold,’ but as he watched, the expression on the girl’s face shifted again, this time into what was a horrible grin. Adam froze.

_Oh shit, oh shit, this isn’t real—she’s not real—she can’t be real. If she’s real, what did I do to piss a yurei off?_

While he sat beside her, frozen in horror, the girl shot forward, and suddenly there was a sword Adam hadn’t seen any sign of before in her hand. He saw it coming for his stomach and dove back and to the side, trying to avoid the lunge, but the sword caught him in his right side by his ribcage as he tried to dodge, and he fell back reeling. The pain. The pain was real. It was very, very real.

_Oh god._

Adam scrambled backwards on his elbows, and the girl wheeled on him and slashed at him again, face contorted in rage now, and she screamed as he brought up a hand and took the slash across his forearm.

“Adam?”

He woke with a start, the jumble of relived memories crashing together and fading as he did, and he was looking up at Ace Visconti.

Adam groaned and sat up, feeling more tired than when he’d gone to sleep. Maybe that was normal—somehow Quentin never slept and was still alive; maybe sleep didn’t do what it should here. But maybe it was that every dream he had was a bad one.

“Did something happen?” asked Adam groggily, sitting up.

“You were screaming,” said Ace quietly, trying to keep from waking up any of the others around the fire.

There weren’t exactly days and nights here—it was only ever night, but someone always made an executive decision that the ‘today’ cycle was over when people seemed beat, and they usually treated that like true night—sleeping as a group, while maybe two or three stayed up. There wasn’t any real logic Adam could see to that way of doing things, but it was still useful to them, because it was familiar and comforting. If someone hadn’t decided to pretend days happened and ended and new ones began, going through the horrors they did would probably have been unbearable. Days were human units of time that let you feel like something was past and behind you, and a new chance was beginning, once every twenty-four hours. Progress, or at least, not stagnation. That would have been unbearable here.

“Sorry,” said Adam, rubbing his face tiredly, “Did I wake anyone else up?”

“I wasn’t asleep in the first place, so you woke no one ‘up’ at all as far as I can tell,” said Ace.

“You’re saying that screaming didn’t wake anyone up?” asked Adam, honestly a little concerned by that.

“Well, several people sat up to see if anyone was dead,” said Ace with a smile and a shrug, “But they realized what was going on and conked back out. So not really woken-up either. Nightmares aren’t too rare here, so, par for the course.”

“Ah,” replied Adam, stretching, “Well, thank you for waking me up.”

“You want to talk about it?” asked Ace, relaxing against the same log Adam had been sleeping beside, “According to Quentin’s expertise, most nightmares come from the dreamer feeling a lack of control. But some things can help, like talking about it.”

Adam glanced over at Quentin where he was sitting across the campfire. He was awake, like always, although he didn’t seem to be doing anything for once. _Probably wiped out from dance rehearsals._ Meg had come back from her most recent trial with the Legion with big news and big ideas, and had since been prepping tow shows at once— _Pitch Perfect,_ which Kate was helping organize and they were supposed to see in the next few days, and _Dirty Dancing,_ which Meg had just started to choreograph, but been very secretive about when it came to not letting people see the dances ahead of time if they weren’t in them.

The whole thing was kind of stupid, but also Adam had to admit it was nice. While he was still fairly secluded himself in his interactions and use of time—choosing mostly to focus on goals and figuring out potential next moves, learning how to use things here, studying anything that might give him an edge or help the group, and only really interacting with people who sought him out, and then only for the amount of time they required—which mostly meant talking to Ace, Kate, or sometimes Dwight or Claudette—the events Meg regularly threw seemed to do the group as a whole a lot of good. The ‘Meg Movies,’ as the group had been calling them, were slowly but surely getting more and more collaborative, until these most recent two practically promised to be live theater events. Which was ridiculous and absurd, sure—go straight from having your guts ripped out and eaten or being sacrificed on a hook to clocking in two good hours of acapella jams or Patrick Swayze dance moves, but why not? They were all dead and living in an absurdist hellscape. What did it hurt to live a little? It might be ridiculously stupid and pointless if you looked objectively at all the time and effort people were putting into it here, but at the same time, he actually saw people laughing and smiling and looking happy. Sometimes for an hour or two at a time. Small miracles. Something to live for. And he was happy for them.

“Is he the sleep expert?” asked Adam, indicating Quentin with his head. Which seemed like sort of a dumb question once he’d said it, because, of course the boy would be.

“Yeah,” replied Ace, “Want me to drag him over? You could talk to him instead—he’d probably do a better job.”

“No,” said Adam, smiling to himself, “That’s fine.” The poor kid always looked about ready to fall over dead—he definitely had enough to deal with already without losing some of what seemed to function as ‘rest’ to him to talk to someone else about _their_ nightmares.

“Do you want to talk it over?” offered Ace, since he hadn’t really answered.

“Let me think about it,” replied Adam, not sure if he did. Was reliving the train wreck even really a nightmare? Was college? That was just a memory. Maybe being killed counted, but he hadn’t really remembered it any different from how it had happened in the dream—maybe a little off, and third-person for some reason. But was that really a nightmare at all? He kept dreaming about these same events, and a handful of others, over and over the past few weeks, but maybe it was just because he was thinking about them a lot. Considering all the nightmares he might have had here, it really wasn’t worth complaining about. “Everything here is just,” he continued after a second, waving his hand in a vague, circular motion and then letting it drop, “So much.”

Ace watched him, reading the expression pretty easily. “You’ll get more used to it.”

“I don’t want to get more used to it,” said Adam, looking back.

Ace nodded, understanding. “It is…a lot,” he agreed.

“This is so surreal,” said Adam, looking up at the sky, “I feel like I am stuck in some horrible piece written by Kafka.”

“Eugh,” said Ace, “Don’t say that. Can’t you pick someone who writes dark with happier endings?”

Adam laughed. “Like what, Dickens? It’s not surreal enough.”

“I was gonna say not bleak enough either,” replied Ace, folding his arms casually behind his head and leaning back, “But then I remembered _Bleak House._ ”

“That’s nothing,” said Adam, a long, extensive career in classic literature under his belt, “I’d argue strongly for _Nicholas Nickleby_ or _Our Mutual Friend.”_

“You’re probably right, but I haven’t read enough classic English fiction to keep this going,” confessed Ace, “If I’m honest, I just watched the BBC _Bleak House_ adaptation too.”

Adam waved a hand dismissively. “To each their own. You might try someday, assuming any of us ever get out of here. I like that Dickens chose to focus so much on socioeconomic inequality and human suffering but with, like you wanted, a positive light at the end. And that he had to write serially—which really only comic books do now, as far as fiction goes. It’s fascinating how it changes the writing process.”

“Sorry to disappoint on the academic front,” said Ace.

“Don’t worry about it,” replied Adam. Conversations with Ace were comfortable and relaxed, and he enjoyed them. They had lived almost comically different lives before all of this, but Ace was so casual and adaptable that it was easy to talk to him about anything.

“The _Bleak House_ thing sounded pretty witty when I said it, though, right?” asked Ace, grinning and looking at Adam out of the corner of his eye.

“It was pretty good,” agreed Adam, smiling. Both men hung in a comfortable silence for a minute.

“Thought any more about it?” asked Ace finally, glancing over.

“About the Spirit?” Adam guessed, since they’d talked about this maybe four times recently.

Ace gave a nod.

“Constantly,” said Adam, thinking it over again as he did, “I’m just not sure what to try. I spoke to her in Japanese before—the first time I met her, and she attacked me just the same. I’ve been trying to come up with an approach better than the one I used, but nothing ever comes to me. Not that’s good, anyway. But, I know I have to,” continued Adam, motioning towards the younger people scattered around the fire, asleep, “Trying to get somewhere with the killers is dangerous, and we can’t keep letting the kids do all the heavy lifting.”

“Even though they’re pretty damn good at it,” agreed Ace, smiling fondly at the group of people asleep around them.

“You know,” said Adam, mind still on their attempts to establish contact with some of the killers, “We still don’t really know _why_ Philip let people go the first time. –What got through to him.”

“No,” said Ace, thinking it over himself, “Wasn’t like it was the first time he’d seen one of us protect another. But he doesn’t remember that time anymore, so we’ll never really know.”

“Right,” continued Adam, mind warming up and cogs turning more quickly as he went on, “But every time he’s decided to help us, it’s been because something made him figure out we weren’t the enemy—right? It’s been a variety of ways, but his whole thing is that he thought we deserved to be here, and when he figured out he’d been lied to, he’d help us.”

“That’s about the size of it,” agreed Ace, watching him.

“Then we’ve got Meg waltzing in to announce that she’s made friends with one of the four Legion kids,” continued Adam, “Who doesn’t really want to kill us, but has been doing it out of fear and peer-pressure. And tells us that she got her to be her friend just by being nice, persistent, and reassuring. More or less.”

“Oh it was a lot more,” said Ace. It had been a _massively_ long discussion, with some people just in states of shock, others, like Claudette, elated, some, like Laurie, dubious, and, in Ace’s opinion (which he had voiced to Adam after the meet), Jake and Tapp suspiciously quiet. “But you aren’t wrong.”

“So, both of them—” Adam started, but Ace cut in.

“—Don’t forget the Huntress. I know she’s not a sure thing, but she did let two of them go—at least more or less,” said Ace, “Definitely worth adding to the pile.”

“Which is the most confusing one, to me,” admitted Adam, running through what he knew about the Huntress too, “I mean, she’s seen all of them many times before. Isn’t it weird to you that she would let Feng and Quentin walk just because they called her ‘mom’?”

Ace shrugged. “Not really. Took a lot of seeing us do things to click with Philip. I think the Entity runs a tight ship, and works hard to make sure things that would mess with Killers’ resolves don’t happen.”

“Okay,” conceded Adam, “But we still don’t have a motive for her in the first place, which would be helpful. She’s completely unlike the other two. You have Philip, operating under a lie, and Susie, afraid to disobey. Both of those make sense, and both were very aware of how much trouble they’d get in for acting out. But according to Feng and Quentin, that doesn’t seem like it even crossed the Huntress’ mind. Once she decided she _wanted_ them, she just took them. No second-thoughts.”

“You got me there,” said Ace. “Well, in the name of classic literature, let’s try this the Sherlock Holmes way. Once you eliminate the impossible,”

“Whatever remains, no matter how _improbable,_ must be the truth,” finished Adam with him, “You know you have to eliminate every single other possibility for that to work, though, right?”

Ace gave him a _come on, really?_ look, somewhere between amused and incredulous at Adam’s response.

“Fine. What can it hurt,” added Adam, feeling a little embarrassed, but mostly just like laughing at himself, “I’m game.”

“Well, then” said Ace, gesturing as he spoke, “Scenario. You’re the Huntress and you regularly hunt people, sacrifice, and sometimes chop them up, have no apparent issues with this, and show no emotion about it. Then, one day two of the people you kill all the time call you mom a lot, both of whom you were full-on ready to ax to death about four minutes ago, and you decide, on the spot, that they’re your kids now. Why?”

“What is insanity and impulsive tendencies?” answered Adam.

Ace made a sound like a buzzer rejecting the bid. “Nope, if she was just impulsive, we’d have seen her do weird things before. We’ve been in hundreds of trials with her. I’ll take Huntress motives for 500.”

“Fine,” said Adam, crossing his arms and smiling, “Give it your best shot.”

“What is enjoying hunting for sport, but having no future lineage of her own to pass the tradition on to?” offered Ace.

“Take it seriously,” said Adam, just a little annoyed.

“Well,” said Ace, taking it more seriously, “We know she is interested in keeping kids for at least almost certain. So, what _could_ explain some tall, buff, _very_ attractive woman having absolutely no perceivable qualms about hunting other humans for sport, but still make her all of a sudden want to keep some as kids, or pets.”

“I don’t know,” shrugged Adam, “Everyone gets lonely. Probably even her. Maybe she just hadn’t thought about it until she had two young people begging to be adopted.”

“That’s a lot more plausible,” agreed Ace, “So the working theory is loneliness, which she forgot about until human relations were offered?”

“Maybe she just didn’t think it would be a problem, too,” continued Adam, seeing some sense in that, “After all, I doubt the Entity specifically said ‘you can never, ever keep a human with you as a pet.’ I mean—why would it feel the need to? Who would do that? It could explain why she wasn’t afraid of getting in trouble like Susie or Philip. If, for whatever reason, it was a lot easier to get her to do this originally than some of the others, who’ve pretty clearly been tortured,”

“Spirit, Hag, Trapper, Wraith,” said Ace, motioning him to continue.

“Then it could logically follow it just didn’t occur to her that it would be a problem with the Entity, because it never had to lay down the law with her in the first place,” finished Adam, feeling, if not entirely secure, a little better about having some sort of working theory about her. That one had been bothering him since it had happened.

“In which case,” said Ace, “The way to get through to them isn’t constant. You said it yourself. With Wraith—Philip—fuck, damn it, I keep doing that—we got him to help us by telling him the truth. We got Susie, supposedly, by making her less afraid of getting in trouble, and being nice.”

“Supposedly,” agreed Adam.

“And then, assuming working theory, the Huntress decided that she would let some of us go because she wanted to be…less alone?” finished Ace, “So, none have the same motive.”

“No,” disagreed Adam, thinking it over, “They all have the same motive. We changed what they want.”

“Come again?” said Ace, shifting to face him more directly.

“Philip is helping because he doesn’t want to be a murderer—pretty simple,” said Adam, gesturing as he went to help him think, “In the grand scheme of things, I guess what he wants hasn’t changed on paper—he was always trying to do the right thing, but before that meant killing us, and now it means helping us. Susie,” continued Adam, waving a finger like he was explaining a theory to a class full of students, “Wanted not to get in trouble, and Meg thinks she’s come around to feeling pretty equally strongly about not wanting to get in trouble and not wanting to kill other people. The Huntress wanted…who knows what before—let’s be vague and say to hunt, but then Feng and Quentin convinced or reminded her she wanted not to be alone even more than she wanted to kill them. Essentially,” he finished, looking over at Ace, “Somehow, we found ways to convince all three of them—at least temporarily, that they could get what they really want with us, and not with the Entity. Same motive.”

“So,” said Ace slowly, glancing into the firelight for a few seconds, then back at Adam, “You’d suggest the way to get to any others we can is find out what they want, and then try to convince them what they really want is to help us instead?”

“I mean, it sounds a lot shadier when you say it that way,” agreed Adam, “But yes.”

Ace rubbed the back of his head. “It does sound shady. Or, it would except that we’re trying to convince them what they want is basically anything except serial killing us a bunch of times.”

“Exactly,” said Adam, “Situationally, in context, it’s not actually bad. But for the life of me, I have no idea what the Spirit wants. I could ask her, but I don’t think she’d tell me. She’s some kind of yurei thing—they’re terrifying.”

“No, she’s very scary,” agreed Ace, “Maybe we should try a different one?”

Adam let out a breath, considering. “I suppose, but she does seem like she _should_ be one of the easier ones. She’s young, injured.”

“When you met her,” said Ace thoughtfully, “You said she was crying, right?”

Adam nodded.

“Do you think that was just to lure you over?” asked Ace, “Because she’s never done that since. So, it doesn’t seem to me like it would be—she doesn’t do the Legion crap, trying to bait people with sympathy.”

“No,” agreed Adam, “She’s so fast, I don’t think she’d need to either. I’ve no idea why she was crying though.”

“You really, full-on walked up to a thing that looks like the Spirit, ghost-eyes, crazy levitating hair, floating limb chunks and all, and asked her if she was okay?” asked Ace, side-eying him.

“Yes,” said Adam defensively, “She was crying—I wanted to help.”

Ace just grinned at him, not saying anything.

“She looked very cold!” protested Adam, feeling a little attacked.

“She probably is,” said Ace.

“I did stop and think—” started Adam, still feeling a need to explain his actions.

“—I know, I know. Sorry, I didn’t mean to give you a hard time,” said Ace, putting a hand on Adam’s shoulder to stop him, but looking distracted and clearly thinking about something else that seemed, by the look on his face, to be at least a little amusing, “It’s genuinely nice that you wanted to help her,” he added, looking back at Adam, “Even though she looks like a poster for _The Ring._ ”

“Wanting to help doesn’t matter, because I have no idea what she needs,” said Adam.

“You still want to?” asked Ace, broken out of whatever revere he’d been in.

 _Do I?_ Adam was genuinely unsure. He tried to figure that out. The answer _should_ be yes, right? _She’s a human being, and a probably a teenager at that, so I really ought to help her, right? If possible? But then, she’s also a deranged killer who has killed me and my friends and acquaintances for no reason at all many times now. That’s inexcusable, so I don’t have any responsibility to fulfil. Right? Damn it._

Ever since they’d batted around the idea of communicating with other killers after getting Philip back the last time, Adam had known that if anyone was going to try to talk to the Spirit, it would have to be him. Feng spoke a little Japanese too, but not any better than he did, and there wasn’t any reason to make her be the one to be in harm’s way. After his first trial with the Spirit, Adam had tried to shut down the part of himself that had wanted to help her—after all, she was a horrifying ghost who had killed him. There was absolutely no good, same, logical reason to want to help. Was there?

 _She looks like she has been tortured, so I guess it would be fair to assume that the Entity punishes her if she doesn’t kill us, right? Is that a good enough reason? If one of us got tortured with the ultimatum kill or be hurt, how are we supposed to feel about the choice to kill? It’s quite obviously the lesser choice—the weaker one, but does that make it unsympathetic? Aren’t they not really to blame, in the way someone who pulled the trigger on another with a gun to their own head would only be partially responsible? But, that doesn’t make it okay. Even choosing kill or be killed, you’re still choosing to let someone else die. How are we supposed to look at that?_ Utilitarianism, Categorical Imperative, Relativism, Virtue theories—everything in ethics studies was about right and wrong, or choosing rules to adhere to, not sympathy and forgiveness, except in very general terms. Besides, it would be stupid to base real life decisions with such overwhelming repercussion on adherence to a theory. He just wanted to be able to have something to back up how he felt.

_Fuck. This is a simple question. Just think of an answer and say it._

“I guess I do,” said Adam, uncomfortable that he knew he wouldn’t be able to win or even hold solid ground in an argument if someone challenged him on why.

“Why?” asked Ace, nothing but genuine curiosity in the tone.

“She…Uh,” Adam threw in the verbal interrupter to have a second to think. _Just tell him the truth. It’s not always bad to be illogical and impulsive, and Ace isn’t going to be harsh about it._ “I know it’s stupid,” said Adam, shrugging, hating himself a little in the moment for how he felt, “But when I first met her—saw her, I guess—she was crying. I don’t think she knew I was there. I know I shouldn’t feel sympathetic, and it’s irresponsible of me to put anyone else’s wellbeing or suffering because of her below that, but.” He sighed. “I don’t know, Ace. I’ve never been much got at not doing stupid things when someone was in trouble. Especially when it was stupid,” he added in the tone of someone very much disappointed in themself.

Ace listened and thought about it for a second. “Why do you think that’s something to feel bad about?”

“Because it’s stupid—and useless,” said Adam, “It never works. And I should have learned that by now.”

“Well, how many times have you helped someone when you thought it was stupid?” asked Ace.

Adam made a face.

“Oof, a lot, huh?” asked Ace.

“Maybe,” said Adam morosely.

“All of them went bad?” asked Ace.

Adam made a noncommittal gesture.

“You’re sure?” prodded Ace.

“I don’t have any I’m sure worked out,” said Adam, “And quite a few I know didn’t.”

“Well,” said Ace after thinking that over for a second, “Do you regret it?”

“I regret the sleep I’ve lost,” answered Adam automatically, very nostalgic for the feeling of being rested.

“But the actual choice to help—do you regret it?” asked Ace again.

“No,” said Adam quietly, looking at the fire and not liking that this was the truth, “Not one of them.”

“Well don’t look so mad about it,” said Ace teasingly, looking relieved and happy and maybe a little proud, which made Adam feel good and uncomfortable at the same time, “It’s not a bad thing. You did your best to help people—not your fault if they didn’t take advice, or things didn’t work out. Shit happens.”

“Well, it makes it hard to feel like it was a good use of time,” replied Adam, glancing over.

“Maybe,” admitted Ace, “But it’s not all good uses of time and bad—sometimes it’s just uses. Besides, you probably built some character.”

Adam made a noncommittal grunt. _Maybe. But maybe I just did stupid things because I have a weakness for things I think I can fix._ He wondered if the girl on the train were dead. He’d wondered that a lot since getting here—probably every day. When the Entity had taken him, had he vanished and left the door he’d been trying to stop from killing her to hit her anyway? If he hadn’t moved, would the Entity have taken her instead, and she’d be alive? If so, which of those was the better option? Part of him thought death, but part of him was still very attached to the idea of being alive and getting out of this place someday. So many variables in play to know if it had been the right choice.

“Look, don’t read too much into this if you don’t want to,” said Ace, watching him, “I know you got your shit together. But you should loosen up a little. You push yourself to keep up with standards that are a little too harsh sometimes. It’s not some fatal Greek flaw to be a bit of a bleeding heart.”

“You would think so,” said Adam, sighing and smiling over at Ace, “It just seems like it makes it hard to tell what decisions are good and which are bad sometimes.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Ace, “Being someone who’s benefitted personally several times from your moral code and a damn find reader of people after a lifetime of depending on it to live, I think I’d put down good money saying you’ve probably never really made a bad decision in your life. You’re just afraid to.”

Adam eyed him and didn’t say anything.

Ace smiled.

“Well,” said Adam after a moment, giving in to what he’d been wanting to do all along, “everyone does make stupid mistakes no matter how careful they are. When you can’t know for sure, it might as well be doing what you feel is right.”

“That’s the spirit!” said Ace, “Throw caution to the wind. Just not all the time. Now come on, let’s see if we can’t come up with something to help the scary ghost girl. We don’t know what’s going on with her, sure, or really anything useful, like what she might even need, or want, but I mean, the plus side is we don’t have much to lose, right? None of us, including her, are getting any deader.”

Adam laughed. “I guess you’ve got that.”

“Besides,” grinned Ace, putting a hand on Adam’s shoulder, a slow grin creeping over his face, “I just got this very interesting idea.”

 

 

“This is never going to work,” whispered Adam, back pressed against one of the stone walls outside the old asylum. It had taken less time than he’d expected for him and Ace to both end up in a trial with the Spirit. Ace had told him it was fine if he tried the idea without him, but that if he wanted to wait maybe his next spirit trial through if he wasn’t in it, _just in case,_ he would appreciate that. Really, the odds weren’t bad. Everyone had killers they seemed to draw more often than others—almost always killers they hated drawing, at that. Ever since they’d arrived, Laurie and Meg had had an instant, visceral hatred of the Legion, and the new killer had seemed to feel similarly about Jake, and all three had been drawn for at least half of the Legion trials since. Similarly, Quentin rarely got to miss a Nightmare trial, and the Trapper got Feng at least 80% of the time. Adam got the Spirit a lot—not anything like as much as the survivors with vendettas against killers, but about as much as Jake, Nea, and Feng, ended up with the Doctor, or Kate got the Clown. And since there were only fourteen of them, including the new man they hadn’t managed to recruit yet, and four people per trial, you had an almost a one in three chance of being in any given trial.

Ace hadn’t been in his first trial with the Spirit, so Adam had waited, and then he’d been in another one the same day and chickened out, but in what seemed to be a not infrequent experience for anyone else either, he’d gotten her again the next day, chickened out again, and then, only about an hour later, back-to-back and a fourth time, he’d ended up with the Spirit again, and this time, with Ace.

 _Maybe this is supposed to happen, though,_ thought Adam, watching the Spirit tear up the gen he and Ace had been working on together with her katana. He wasn’t a big one for putting too much faith in cosmic happenings or fate, but, like almost everyone, there were times when it just seemed like something was supernaturally on purpose.

 _Or,_ Adam reminded himself, looking over at the grin on Ace’s face and his readied posture as they waited for the Spirit to phase walk away in search of Nea and Jake, _Like he says, it took some doing, but all that luck he has finally paid off._

It had been the first thing he’d said when they’d bumped into each other outside the shed at the edge of the asylum. Two ways of looking at everything.

 _God, I hope it’s his way,_ Adam silently prayed, _We’re about to need so much luck._

The Spirit stopped looking around the walls near the generator for them and turned her head towards the far end of the trial area, and there was a sudden sound like a hiss, and her body went mostly rigid and held still.

“Go,” whispered Ace, leaping over the little ledge in the wall they’d been behind about twenty feet away and booking it for the Spirit’s husk. Adam took off with him.

It had taken a while for them to get used to how the Spirit worked when she’d first arrived, but the best they could tell, every so oven she would leave her body and fly around incredibly fast as a ghost until she found something suspicious, at which point she’d snap her body to her spirit’s new position and, usually, attack whoever she’d found. Her vision was a lot worse when she wasn’t in her body, though—for sure. She’d walked, or flown, or whatever, right past most of them a whole handful of times. Which was nice, but also scary as fuck when it was happening and you heard a sound like a demonic vacuum cleaner bearing down on you, and you, sweating bullets, had to decide whether to hide and fight the urge to run like hell, or assume she’d seen you and make a mad dash for it.

The generator they’d been repairing and the Spirit’s husk were up on a hill, and from their vantage point as they made it to the top, Ace and Adam could both just barely see Jake and Nea, half-hidden by a low wall, working a generator together a ways off.

“Go, go, go,” hissed Ace, his frenzied pace matching Adam’s as they struggled with Spirit’s husk.

 _We are so getting absolutely torn to shreds for this,_ thought Adam with a sinking feeling as he tugged on the shoulder of his coat. The girl’s body moved passively, hair floating, head tilting and expression changing in quick, grotesque ways—exactly like he remembered from the night he’d met her. He blanched at the sight of her severed arm chunks floating in place and the glass in her shoulder—he wanted to try and pull it out, but he knew in a very sure way that that would have been a terrible idea.

_It looks so painful._

They got Adam’s white coat over her arms with relative ease, and, as discussed, brought it down hard over the glass at the shoulders so it would just tear holes to accommodate them instead of ripping through the whole shoulder as the fabric was dragged past it. Frantically fast, fingers tripping over each other, Adam buttoned the top button of the coat.

His skin met the grey-blue skin she had at her throat, and he had known she would be cold, but he was taken aback by how absolutely freezing the sensation was.

Ace got a button about halfway down her chest, and then the husk disappeared from between them, and reappeared over by Jake and Nea, who reacted with about as much surprise as the Spirit herself did.

She swung her katana at Jake, but Nea took the hit for him, and he grabbed her and shoved her over the wall and leapt it after her, trying to buy her a little time to get some distance by body blocking when the Spirit caught up to them. The Spirit started to lunge after him and then stopped mid-swing and stared down at her body, spinning in quick, half-circle motions, trying to see what was on her. The katana disappeared and she picked up the coat tails and looked around in confusion, hands running up and down the fabric.

While she was distracted, Jake got an arm around Nea and helped her book it into the asylum. The Spirit didn’t even register it. She just hung in the air, holding her arms out to look at the sleeves, and then looking around herself frantically again as if she were expecting someone to be hiding behind her, ready to shove a ushanka hat over her head if she wasn’t careful.

“It’s the simple things in life you cherish,” said Ace beside him, leaning his elbow against Adam’s shoulder.

Adam smiled. _It was an incredibly impulsive, stupid idea, but at least she has something to wear now. Maybe a little less cold, less vulnerable._ It would have made him feel better.

“I’m glad Nea’s here to see it,” answered Adam, watching the Spirit trying to read what they’d written on the sleeves.

They hadn’t told anyone what they were doing except Nea, who they’d brought in to help, and had been absolutely giddy about the whole thing. Adam’s coat was a fairly unobtrusive white, which had earned a fair share of stains, but Adam and Ace had both thought it would be a good idea to go the whole nine yards and decorate it if they were going to make a gift out of it. Adam had sketched up some designs, including the massive cherry blossom on the back of the coat now, and Nea had spray-painted the rest with care. Gold trim around the sleeves, pink flower on the back, smaller lotuses on the coat tails and tiny ones along the rest of the body, and underneath was her own design. Nea had gone wild when told to “do what she thought looked good” on the base of the coat, and had left it with what looked to Adam and Ace like a purple, black, and white night sky. Adam hadn’t been too sure about that, because black had some negative connotations traditionally—but then, white was a funeral color, so it wasn’t really any worse, and it had been too late to stop her anyway.

After the thing was done, they’d writing on the top of the wrists “A gift, to help keep you warm” and, after a little debate about if she would even recognize the whole group named as something like “the Survivors” or “the people you kill” and if there was a way to do that without sounding aggressive, they’d just left their three names.

The only issue after that had been dodging questions about the coat while wearing it. He’d started wearing it inside-out and tied around his waist, but people had still known something _real_ damn shady was up.

“Girl’s a genius at that,” agreed Ace, “It looks great.”

“You think she’ll rip it to shreds?” asked Adam, looking over at Ace as the Spirit still floated in place, squinting at the kanji on the coat.

“Nah, I think she’ll like it,” replied Ace.

“We did pretty good, right?” asked Adam. Below them in the asylum yard, the Spirit finished reading and whipped around, looking again for some sign of whoever had managed to do this to her.

“Yeah,” said Ace, grinning, “We did.”

“Hell yes we did,” said Adam, feeling pretty good.

The Spirit seemed to remember then where her husk had been, and she turned her head to look towards the hill they were on and they saw her see them.

“Ha, ha, fuck,” said Ace, removing his arm from Adam’s shoulder and jumping off the hill.

Adam leapt off after him, and both ran as fast as they could side-by side towards a row of walls up ahead. They had barely made fifteen feet when they heard the awful vacuum hissing sound that meant she was on top of them.

They split apart, trying to make sure she only got one of them, and just as Adam heard her materialize behind Ace there was a massive _BOOM_ that echoed across the trial grounds and he felt a curse smack into him. _Are you fucking kidding me? Who activated her totem?_

Ace screamed and went down in one hit as Adam kept running. She didn’t stop to hook Ace, though, she kept coming after him. Adam ducked through some walls, trying to find a way to lose her, and there was the hiss of her silent movement again, and then she was in front of him, sword raised, and he tried to stop too late and the sharp steel came crashing down on him, carving a deep slash through his chest and sending explosive pain throughout his body as the curse took effect, hitting him with so much anguish it almost knocked him out.

He was only half aware, senses overwhelmed with trying not to let his body shut down in response to the pain, of her moving and standing over him, what had once been his coat fluttering in the wind as her wild hair blew about her and her body twisted and contorted in involuntary, painful looking ways.

And Adam was afraid of her. This was always what he forgot when he wasn’t in her presence, or reliving the past in a dream. That she was a truly terrifying, harrowing thing, and much stronger than him. No matter how much the instinct part of his brain might see her and think “young girl,” she was something that could absolutely kill him if she really wanted to, probably every time he saw her.

In the few, incredibly slow moments he was laying on the ground beneath her, Adam thought about trying to speak to her in Japanese. He could beg for his life, or ask her about the coat, or for her name. He could ask her why she was doing this. But he felt very certain it wouldn’t matter. Nothing they had done would.

She bent over him and laced her fingers into his collar, jerking his head a few inches off the ground. Her face contorted in rage, and then fear, and then misery, and then a sadistic grin, all in less than a second each, and something cold and wet fell onto his cheek and he thought for a second she’d spat on him, and then, as her expression flickered again, that she was crying, and then, before he could be certain, Adam was hefted up onto her shoulder, glass digging into his stomach and sending ripples of multiplied pain all over, and she ran him though a hook.

There wasn’t any time to breathe the rest of the trial. In the end, Jake made it out alone.

 

“Well,” said Ace, sliding down into the spot beside Adam at the edge of the campfire, “Not exactly as planned. Not any worse than usual, though.”

It had been about fifteen minutes of waiting for Adam. The end of the trial had dragged on, after Nea had been killed, and they’d talked a little before she’d gone to hang out with Kate, Meg, and Feng for rehearsals. There had been ample time to think.

“No, not as planned,” agreed Adam, looking over at him, “But I’m glad we did it. Even though I think we probably never really had a chance.”

“Yeah?” said Ace with a smile, “Me too.”

“I’ve been thinking, though,” said Adam, “And comparing notes with Meg, since she has a weirdly complete knowledge of supernatural creatures.”

Ace nodded. Meg was a walking encyclopedia of many things, and he’d been part of several Krueger analysis meets to try and figure out for sure their best chances of killing or at least slowing him down. Her supernatural knowledge was pretty on-point.

“I think the Spirit might be an Onryo,” said Adam, looking pensive, “That’s the worst kind of Yurei. They come back because of anger or vengeance usually, bearing marks from how they were killed, and their rage is often so overwhelming that they will kill anyone they come into contact with, not just the person who they originally wanted to kill. They’re smart, but they can’t be reasoned with, or banished easily, even with a proper Taoist or Buddhist exorcism.”

“The whole rage and the wounds matching how she probably died thing holds up,” agreed Ace, “What can you do to help them—or put them to rest?”

“That’s just it,” said Adam tiredly, “That’s why they’re the worst kind. They’re so overcome by the emotion that ties them to the world, there’s basically nothing else left. The only thing anyone can ever really do to help them rest is to help them enact their vengeance on whoever killed them, or wronged them. Which, obviously—maybe not always a great plan, and easier said than done. But trapped in here, with whoever she hates back in the real world?” he shook his head, looking sad, and shrugged at Ace, “We can’t do anything.”

Ace nodded slowly, looking a little less peppy than normal himself, taking that in. “Still glad we tried, though?” he asked again, more to ask why than to confirm it.

“Yeah,” said Adam, feeling regret but also a little bit of peace, “Onryo basically only result from violent deaths, and from the state of her…” he didn’t have to finish the sentence, “I doubt she could have known what she would become, and even if there’s no chance we could ever reach what’s left of that girl as a person, she was still someone. She lived, and died horribly, as a child, and now she’s trapped here, away from vengeance or an afterlife, contorted into that thing. It’s not exactly appropriate burial clothes, but at least she isn’t naked now. There’s something a little comforting in honoring the dead, or doing right by them. Even when they’re still walking.”

Stupid, impulsive, but worthwhile. After all, why not? It had seemed like a nice thing to do, and even if it hadn’t solved any problems, no one was worse off for it, were they? Who knew, maybe it had even mattered. Or would someday.

“So,” said Ace, catching the expression on his face, “You got plans for what you want to tackle next already? Hillbilly, Hag?”

“I’m still thinking that one through,” said Adam, smiling back at him, “But I want to ask Philip some questions the next time I see him. And in the meantime, I want to see if I can talk Meg into giving me a part in _Dirty Dancing._ ”

“Really?” said Ace, surprised and excited at the same time.

“Why not?” said Adam, “It might be fun. Besides, I like the film.”

“Really?” asked Ace, more taken aback than before. Apparently, an 80s almost musical hadn’t been his first guess for Adam’s cinema tastes.

“Of course,” answered Adam, “It’s a rare kind of film. One of my favorite types. About socioeconomic inequality and human suffering, but not with a happy ending or a sad one. Just a hopeful end.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adam's always been a really unique survivor because he's so steady and assured, unlike a lot of the others. Resourceful, calm, and intelligent. He's also one of the only ones who had really hit a happy stride in life and sort of "made it" right before being taken, unlike the majority who got taken when in either a bad place, or at least a not entirely fortunate one.  
> As far as Rin goes, her backstory is really rough, and her situation is a very unfair one. I remember when Shattered Bloodlines came out, being confused as to why Rin didn't seem to have a problem with being a killer, when she was a normal and nice person beforehand, doing what she could to take pressure off her family by working while in school. The whole situation makes a lot more sense when you take into account that she is not just a ghost, or a Entity souped-up version of herself, but a different sort of thing now. She canonically draws on not only her own rage and hate to use her ghost abilities, but her ancestor's as well, which lends to her being a specifically supernatural creature now. That, and basically everything from her physical description to her characterization, match an Onryo, which is basically the worst kind of spirit/yurei you can be. Unlike many types of yurei, they cannot be easily reasoned with, tricked, or banished, and their rage or hate overwhelms them and generally spills out unchecked and without discrimination onto anyone in their path. In a lot of ways, what the Entity did to her is especially fucked up, because it caused the original situation that turned her into this (by slowly driving her father insane and then basically possessing him and causing him to attack and kill her and her mother), and then snatched her at the last second instead when she was dying in a rage. Without the ability to ever actually get revenge on her father, or one of the vaguely and only occasionally possible other solutions--like a really, really damn good priest and a proper burial, she's basically stuck in its realm forever now, a supernatural battery of rage that, unlike the other killers, really /can't/ ever get tired or demoralized and give up.
> 
> It was about time Adam had a chapter, and I had a lot of fun writing him--and more of Ace. Thank you all so much for reading, kudos, and comments--they really mean the world to me, and it makes me very happy to see people enjoying the story. Thanks you again!


	37. Dirty Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With all the crazy shit in their lives, Dwight decides to suggest a little distraction for the good of group morale, and boy is Meg ready to deliver.

“I’m not saying it was a bad idea to get close with Susie, just maybe give the rest of us a heads up next time?” said Dwight, watching Meg write, and clearly a little worn down and disappointed in her for not paying as much attention as she should be.

They were sitting together at the edge of the campfire clearing, by one of the big trees where she’d retreated to work on a new idea and to get a little peace after the explosion that had been telling everyone she and Susie were friends now.

“Just, it’s dangerous to the group if she finds out too much, and we really need to be coordinated,” continued Dwight, “You’re offering her basically exactly what we’re doing with Philip, and we really don’t want the Entity to catch on.”

“Relax,” said Meg, finally looking up, “Like I said, I didn’t tell her anything about how we were doing it with another killer too. I’m not dumb.”

“I know,” said Dwight, in the voice of a tired parent, “But have you talked to her about what to do if the Entity shows up while you’re hanging out? Or thought about what happens if one of the other Legions narcs on her to it?”

Meg sighed and set down the notebook. “Look, yeah, of course I did. But we can’t be sure anything we do will work out, and if I told everyone, it would have pushed her too hard, too fast, and made her feel like I betrayed her trust.”

“You could have at least told me,” said Dwight, not satisfied, “I could have helped you make sure it was as safe as possible. I can’t do much _but_ think through things right now, and it would have been better.”

“I told Jake,” defended Meg.

“And he didn’t tell me?” asked Dwight, surprised and maybe a little hurt.

“Well, he owed me pretty big,” said Meg, feeling a tiny bit bad this time, “And I made him promise.”

“Okay, fine,” said Dwight shaking it off. He took a breath. “Look, like Claudette said, you did good.”

Meg grinned at him.

“But,” he continued, putting heavy emphasis on the word, “You should be more careful. Please talk to me next time.”

Meg sighed. “Fine, okay dad.”

Dwight made a face like he was looking off into the camera on a mockumentary show, then turned back to her with a sigh. “Well, if I have to be team dad anyway, then can I ask you for help with something?”

“Wait, what does that have to do with being team dad?” asked Meg.

“I’m getting to that,” said Dwight, motioning to her notebook, “You said you already have plans for your next big production?”

“Yeah,” said Meg, radiating excitement, “Since rehearsals for _Pitch Perfect_ have been so fun, and I think it’s going to go over really great, I thought maybe branch out and as my next big thing do _Dirty Dancing—_ only I thought this time maybe even get a partner and do some actual dances along with the story. I bet people would have a lot of fun watching that.”

“That’s what Kate said you were doing,” said Dwight, “But I was thinking.”

“About?” asked Meg.

“Well,” continued Dwight, “Everyone’s a little worn out right now. I know you’re pumped, and so’s Ace, but something’s going on with Quentin, and Laurie’s been shaky ever since…well, you know. I’ve been dragging the team down in trials with my limited ability to walk, and Claudette’s been a lot better since we got Philip back, but she’s been more stressed than usual and not sleeping a lot and Quentin’s worried about her, and if _Quentin’s_ worried about you not sleeping you know it’s a problem, but nobody’s talking to me about what’s going on.”

“Okay,” said Meg, “Trying to follow.”

“Bottom line is,” said Dwight, “What you do makes people happy. I might be ‘team leader,’ or whatever the hell we decided—”

“—You decided that,” said Meg, “I distinctly remember you having a speech where you were all ‘I’m going to be the leader, and I can help you all, but if you all want to live, you have to listen to me.”

“Okay,” said Dwight, grimacing, “Yeah, I—look, that’s not important. What I’m trying to say is that even if I’m the leader and Claudette’s the most effective recruiter because she’s actually nice to people, we would never have gotten anywhere like this far without you, because you’re the backbone. You give us stuff to look forward to, which is invaluable. You hold us up. I depend on you—I think everyone does.”

Meg flushed, no prepared response to this level of high praise from Dwight.

“I’ve been watching, and Kate, Nea, Feng, and you—and Claudette, when she helps, have been having at least as much fun prepping for this one as people do watching them,” said Dwight, gesturing back towards the others at the fire, “And then Kate said you were doing _Dirty Dancing_ and you might even rope in a person or two to help dance, and she was really happy about it and _Pitch Perfect_ because she’s been trying to get people to do things like that together since she got here, and she’s right. It’s a great idea. Getting people to work on something like that as a unit. So, I was thinking it over, and I wondered what you thought about seeing if you could get everyone.”

“Everyone?” asked Meg, surprised.

“Well, not _everyone,”_ conceded Dwight, “I physically cannot dance without passing out right now. So, you’ll definitely have an audience. But as many people as you can—especially if they seem unhappy. I just thought, maybe, since people seem to enjoy singing and helping you plan the production stuff for _Pitch Perfect_ , dancing might—”

“—No, shit!” exclaimed Meg, running the idea through her mind, “That’s a great idea!” she clapped him on the back and he flinched. “You’re a genius, you know?”

“Uh,” said Dwight.

“I could maybe even get Laurie into it!” said Meg, overcome with the idea of organizing a massive dance production for the whole group, “We could do it almost like a—fuck—a show—a Broadway thing—a musical! There we go. Like a show for real, instead of just a Meg movie—not that I plan to discontinue that, so don’t get any ideas, they’re great, but this could be _epic!_ ”

“You think so?” asked Dwight, smiling and looking a little relieved.

“Hell yeah!” said Meg, “I bet Quentin can dance. And Claudette’s so shy, she’d be _perfect_ as Baby.”

“You’ll never get her to do it,” said Dwight, shaking his head.

“Do. Not. Underestimate me,” said Meg, holding up a finger.

He nodded and held up a hand, backing off.

“I could get Kate as Penny,” continued Meg, “And I know Ace would do it, Quentin will if I ask him because he’s too nice to say no, and so will David. Nea will do it for sure, and if she does, Feng will, and I could choreograph. Only, I’m not sure I’m good enough to do that alone… Hmm. And Johnny—Dwight!” she exclaimed, grabbing his collar, “It has to be Jake. I’d put good, hard fucking cash on him being a dancer.”

“On Jake?” asked Dwight, trying to detach himself.

“Oh yeah,” said Meg, letting go too soon and sending Dwight almost pitching backwards as his attempt to struggle free was suddenly met with no resistance, but she managed to catch him, “He’s _definitely_ a dancer. But he won’t do it for me. You have to ask him.”

“Why would he listen to me?” asked Dwight, still recovering, “He likes you more. Get Claudette to do it.”

“No, but he listens to you,” said Meg, pleadingly, “At least come with me?”

“Okay, sure,” said Dwight, giving in, “I mean, it was my idea so it wouldn’t really be fair to make you do it alone.”

“Yeah, Jake’s scary when he doesn’t want to do something,” said Meg, standing up and offering him a hand. Dwight took it, and she pulled him up. “You doing better, by the way?”

“I think so,” said Dwight, taking the arm she offered and alternately leaning on it and the cane Jake had made him as they walked, “Having a walking stick has helped.”

“It wouldn’t help me,” said Meg, “I’d be too tempted to try and beat the shit out of killers with it and I’d die a lot.”

“Yeah, if you felt like me, that wouldn’t tempt you,” said Dwight, grinning at her.

“Touche,” replied Meg as they approached the campfire.

Jake saw them coming for him and stopped his conversation with Nea and looked up.

“Okay,” said Jake, taking them in, “What’s going on?”

Behind him, Nea leaned forward, watching with interest.

“Can we talk to you?” asked Meg, “In private?”

Jake looked at Nea and then back at them. “That’s not. Worrying at all.”

Meg winked at Nea. “It’s nothing bad, just a surprise.”

“I don’t mind,” said Nea, leaning back and relaxing on the ground, leaving Jake to his fate.

“Great,” said Jake. He let out a sigh and stood up, then made an _after you_ motion with an arm. Meg lead the way with Dwight, and Jake kept pace.

“Thanks,” said Dwight, as they got a little further from the fire and most of the rest of their group.

Jake gave a nod and turned to Meg, stopping. “We far enough?”

“No,” said Meg, “Let’s go past the tree line.”

That wasn’t what he’d expected, so he narrowed his eyes and gave her a suspicious look, but he followed the rest of the way into the trees.

“Okay, great,” said Meg enthusiastically as soon as they were out of eyeline of the group by the campfire, letting go of Dwight, “So, Jake, you know I’m doing _Dirty Dancing_ next?”

“You mentioned it,” he conceded, still suspicious.

“Okay, well I’m going to turn it into a big production,” said Meg, “Like a whole-ass theater thing maybe even. It’s a good choice—I’ve seen it over 100 times with my mom, so I already got a lot of it down and I can sing the songs—and I bet I can get Kate and Ace to do that too.”

“I don’t like that you came over to tell me this in secret,” said Jake, “What do you want from me—wait,” he added, looking a little bit relieved, but still guarded, “Is it sets? You want me to make you sets?”

“Well,” said Meg, considering that.

“No,” answered Dwight for her.

“I’ma give it to you straight,” said Meg, putting a hand on Jake’s shoulder. He gave the hand a look, but didn’t remove it. “I can’t choreograph a mambo. I mean, can I dance? Hell yes. But am I good enough to choreograph something that complicated alone? Definitely probably not.”

“Definitely probably?” asked Jake.

“Plus, I need a Johnny,” said Meg.

“No,” said Jake, removing her hand.

“Please, please, please,” said Meg, grabbing his shoulder again as he turned to go and stopping him, “Jake, come on.”

“I’m not playing the lead for you in _Dirty Dancing,_ ” said Jake, “I don’t dance.”

“You do too!” said Meg indignantly.

“How would you think you know that,” accused Jake, crossing his arms.

“I’ve seen how you move,” said Meg, just as stubborn, “Listen, little rich-boy, I’d put good money on you having had dance lessons. Can’t high society schmooze without ‘em.”

Jake looked at Dwight like he was asking if he was really going to just stand there and let Meg harass him.

“I know you don’t like this kind of thing,” said Dwight, “But everyone’s been really stressed out lately, and I think it would be a lot of fun. Kate’s been suggesting since she got here that we do group event things, and I know I’ve never tried to make that happen either, but come on. Even you like Meg movies and Welcome to Hell.”

“With Meg Thomas,” whispered Meg.

“Nobody will talk to me about what’s wrong, which is, frankly, very annoying,” continued Dwight, “But I don’t want to just do nothing. We need something positive to focus on to distract everyone from how dangerous the rest of this shit is.”

“And it has to be me, and it has to be _Dirty Dancing,_ ” asked Jake, looking back over at Meg.

“Jake,” said Meg, “You’ve seen them. Look me in the eye and tell me you think any of the dudes but you could pull that off.”

Jake thought for a second. “Well, maybe Ace.”

“Jake,” moaned Meg dramatically, “Please? Just please? It’s for a good cause, and I’ll choreograph with you. Come on, I’m gonna try to get Claudette to play Baby, and Ace can’t play teenage lead opposite her.”

“She’ll never do it,” said Jake. Dwight nodded in agreement.

“That’s what they said to Baby in the movie, jackass,” said Meg, “And _she_ did it. Besides, dancing is good for your reflexes—it’s great exercise!”

“I get plenty of exercise,” said Jake, unmoved, “In trials and sparring.”

Meg looked at Dwight helplessly.

“Please?” said Dwight, “It would really help.”

Jake looked at him and met and held his gaze for a second.

“Fine,” he said unhappily, looking away.

“Wait, really?” asked Dwight, taken aback.

Jake shrugged. “You’re right that everyone’s been on edge, and it could be good for them to do something like that. It’s at least a little bit logical. So fine.” He turned to Meg. “But you’re choreographing the freestyle. I can do the mambo numbers and the finale with you, but the freestyle’s your responsibility,” he leaned in close, “And I’m _not_ singing.”

Meg grabbed his face with both hands and grinned at him. “You’re a god among men, Jake Park.”

He pulled away from her and tried not to smile. It only took him about a second to get his expression under control. Jake glanced over at Dwight, who smiled at him, massively relieved he’d given in so easily, and Jake turned away and cleared his throat.

“So,” he said, looking back at Meg, “It’s going to be for the best if we work out a routine before we drag people together to rehears. Can you _actually_ dance?”

“Yeah, bitch,” said Meg, putting her hands on her hips.

“Show me,” said Jake, gesturing at the area in front of her.

“What, right now?” asked Meg, “Can’t I at least grab Kate for some music?”

“I’m not singing,” said Dwight, putting his hands up in front of him.

“Do it without,” said Jake.

“Fine, but do it with me,” said Meg, holding out her hands.

Jake took her hand and placed his other on her waist. “You done a mambo before?” asked Jake, looking down at her.

“Yeah,” said Meg, “But if you don’t lead, I’m just gonna start freestyling, so watch it.”

Jake nodded. “One, two, three, four, one, two.” He stepped shifted on the one and stepped forward on the two and she stepped back, then sort of rocked with the beat in place and stepped forward as he stepped back, then swayed, and forward with her other foot as he went back again. They repeated the pattern without breaking, and Meg started to rotate her hips with the motion, Jake somehow managing to look, to Dwight, both rigid and fluid at the same time, which should have been impossible.

As they stepped into their third rotation, Dwight heard Meg whisper “He’s gotta be strong, and he’s gotta be fast.”

“Are you trying to mambo to _Holding Out for a Hero_?” asked Jake in the voice of someone who truly couldn’t believe it, not missing a step.

“Mind your damn business,” said Meg, keeping up pretty well.

“You’re dancing too fast for that,” said Jake.

“It’s the Shrek 2 version,” said Meg.

Jake looked at Dwight. Dwight didn’t know what to say so he shrugged.

“We’re gonna have to go a very specific speed then,” said Jake, spinning Meg out away from himself and then back.

She was a little slow catching where they were, but jumped right back in after one step. Jake let go of one hand and spun outwards so he and Meg were parallel facing the same direction in a crossover break, and she went with it, crossing one leg in front of the other and rocking with the dance steps in something pretty close to correct time. Jake brought her back into the original pattern and spun her again, and then let her spin him and went back to the original step pattern, moving around the area with it this time for a few seconds, and then he abruptly stopped.

“Okay, that’s good,” said Jake, straightening his scarf and jacket.

“That’s all you wanted to see?” said Meg, surprised and a little suspicious, “That was like sixty seconds.”

“You have the basic concepts of dance and rhythm down, you don’t step on my feet after a spin, and you pick up quick when I lead with something new,” said Jake, “That’s all I really had to know.”

Meg thought about that for a second. “So, I passed then?” said Meg, looking up at him, slow grin spreading across her face.

Jake sighed. “Sure.”

Meg jumped up in the air and pumped a fist. “Hell yeah! Told you I could dance.”

“Where did you learn,” asked Jake, folding his arms.

“Yeah,” added Dwight, “You both looked amazing. And you weren’t even using music—real music, the same music, anyway.”

“My mom taught me,” said Meg. “She always liked dancing with me since I was like, a baby, but the reason I know real dances is because when I was in 6th grade someone I hated at school made fun of me for sucking at a dance, and for revenge I decided I wanted to get so good that I’d stomp her into the ground and could show off all night at the next one, so my Mom taught herself and me, and then when I got older mom and I just did it for fun because Youtube was a thing and it was easy.”

“Did you win?” asked Dwight at the same time Jake said, “Did you stomp her into the ground?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Meg, looking smug, “Let's just say...I fucked it up," she added, making the hand gesture for perfection. "It was great. One of my top 100 to replay when I die and my life flashes before my eyes, for sure.”

Jake nodded approval.

“How about you?” asked Dwight, looking over at Jake.

He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Took lessons.”

Meg gave Dwight a _called it_ look.

“You must have taken a _lot_ of them,” said Dwight, kind of amazed, “You’re really good.”

“Yeah,” said Jake without much emotion, not offering a further explanation.

“You too,” added Dwight to Meg. She grinned.

“So,” said Jake, turning back to Meg, “You said you’re going to try and get Claudette for Baby?”

“Yup,” answered Meg.

“Well, I hope you have a backup,” said Jake, “Because you’re _never_ gonna get her.”

“I mean, I don’t know about that,” said Meg, “I could just beg. She’s pretty easy usually. Even with this—”

“—You’re forgetting that you’re not only asking her to perform in front of everyone, which she hates,” said Jake, “But to _dance_ in front of them, which I’m willing to bet she doesn’t know how to do. Not just for an event, but for days of rehearsal before a performance. As the _lead._ That’s probably her worst nightmare.”

“He makes a good point,” said Meg, putting a knuckle up to her lip, lost in concentration.

“Well, we could see,” said Dwight, in reality on the same page, but trying to be optimistic since the other two weren’t, “Won’t hurt to ask. Maybe if a lot of people get involved, she won’t mind so much.”

“I don’t know,” said Meg, looking over at Dwight, “Jake’s right. I love her, but she’s a big weenie. She hates doing things in front of people and gets embarrassed _so_ easily. I make one sex joke at her and she almost passes out and won’t do _Welcome to Hell with Meg Thomas_ for weeks.”

“To be fair,” said Dwight, “That joke was _devastating_ and I would have been embarrassed too.”

“This might take some thought,” continued Meg, ignoring him, “I know I can come up with _something_ though.” After a second of thinking in silence she kicked a tree angrily. “Damn it! Everything I think of is too mean!” she turned to the boys, flustered and agitated, “It would be such a good thing for her to do this, too, you know? Like, Claude’s always been nervous about people and them paying attention to her, which is okay, but it’s way too much. She’s got crazy anxiety and she needs more confidence in herself. Pulling off sick dance moves in a production with all her friends could help her _so much_ with the whole social anxiety thing.”

“You aren’t wrong,” said Dwight, “She could definitely use more confidence in herself. But the bigger thing to me,” he added to Jake, “is that she’s been so on edge lately that she’s even having trouble sleeping. This might help her take her mind off things. God knows she could use a break from the heavy stuff.”

“Exactly!” said Meg, “It’d be a great distraction, a confidence booster, a joy-bringer, sexy, fun—all around great idea.”

“Can’t you just give her a smaller role and make Kate Baby or something?” Jake asked Meg, “Or you?”

“I mean, I technically could,” said Meg, shrugging, “But I’ve played like thirty leads in Meg movies so it’s about time to pass the torch, and I’m gonna need Kate to help provide music in at least some of the scenes, so that’d be hard to work around if she was Baby. Plus, did you not hear what I just said about Claudette? Like, being an extra might still be fun for her, but it wouldn’t be like…big-ass confidence booster, you know? Mom takes great care of us and makes us food and mostly I try to pay her back by telling her jokes, because that’s what I’m really good at, but that’s like,” she waved a hand side to side in a ‘meh’ gesture, “Eeeh-ehh, you know. Doing this might actually make her _happy._ Dancing, getting to look cool, being with the rest of you—especially if you’re nice to her,” she added pointedly, looking at Jake, “Plus, she’d be the cutest Baby out of the group.”

“And you really think it’d be _that_ big a help to her,” asked Jake, turning to Dwight and looking skeptical.

“I don’t know if she’d have as much fun as Meg thinks,” said Dwight, “But yeah. She’s barely sleeping. This might wear her out enough to knock her out and keep her from thinking about whatever’s going on that she won’t tell me about. Lead could definitely be the time-suck solution to distracting her, and it probably would also be really fun. Although,” added Dwight as the thought occurred to him, glancing from Meg to Jake, “It would have been sort of funny if it was you and him with a kind of fun reverse-cast thing going.”

Jake made a face.

“I mean, I wasn’t _that_ poor,” said Meg, “But fair.”

“And you already know how to dance,” added Jake absently, looking distracted.

She looked at Jake “Did you _want_ me to play Baby or something?”

“No,” said Jake, breaking his train of thought, “You’d be easier to dance with, but if I have to do the lift, I’ll take Claudette if you can get her. She weighs less.”

Meg blinked at him. “Did you just call me fat you little weasel?”

“No,” said Jake again, vaguely indignant at the accusation, “Just Claudette weighs less.”

“Good,” said Meg, propping her foot against a tree and slapping her thigh, “Because it’s all muscle down here, baby.”

“Yes, which weighs more than fat,” said Jake, like he thought it should be obvious to her, “So she’s still easier to carry around.”

“Did you just call her—” said Meg.

“—Okay,” cut in Dwight, stepping between them, “But how are we planning to _get_ Claudette?” he asked, looking from Meg to Jake and back.

“Right,” said Meg, immediately forgetting the earlier conversation, tapping her hand against the tree agitatedly.

“I’ll do it,” said Jake.

The other two turned to him in surprise.

He shrugged. “You think she needs it. …And she would be the lightest to lift, and I already have to do it, so why not?” said Jake, “I’ll go talk to her.”

“What are you gonna do to her?” asked Meg, suspicious.

“Yeah,” said Dwight warily, “You’re not gonna threaten her, are you?”

“Wh --?” Jake stopped and shook his head, looking irritated, “No, I’m not gonna threaten her. I’m not gonna ‘do’ anything to her. I’m just gonna talk. What made you all think I’m _that_ terrible. I guess I can be kind of an asshole sometimes, but I’m not a psychopath.”

“Sorry,” said Dwight, looking genuinely guilty, at the same moment Meg said, “Or so you say.”

Dwight gave her a look. So did Jake. She grinned, unapologetic, and made an open-handed _what?_ gesture.

“Okay,” said Dwight, turning back to Jake, “Let’s go convince her.”

“No,” said Jake, “I’ll do it alone.”

Meg gave him a mistrustful look. “Why…?”

“Because I’ll be more effective that way,” said Jake, “Just trust me.”

Dwight and Meg looked at each other, then back at him.

“Seriously?” said Jake, disbelieving, “I’m just going to talk to her.”

Meg started to say something, and Dwight put his hand on her shoulder and she stopped. “Okay, good luck,” said Dwight.

A smile flickered across Jake’s face for just a moment and then he nodded, turned, and walked back towards the campfire.

“Dwight,” said Meg, moving his hand off her shoulder, “He’s probably gonna blackmail her or something. We aren’t just trying to get her to _play_ Baby, she _is_ a baby. You’re just gonna let this happen?”

“I thought she was team mom,” said Dwight.

“She’s both,” said Meg, “Don’t distract from the issue.”

“Jake’s right,” said Dwight, “We don’t give him enough credit. Do you really think he’s gonna walk over there and blackmail her? With what?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Claudette.”

She looked up from the medkit she’d been updating with new herbs and smiled at Jake. “Hey, do you need something?”

“I’m good,” said Jake, nodding towards her supplies, “But I need to talk to you, if you’ve got a minute.”

“Oh, okay,” said Claudette, looking more serious and standing up.

Nearby, Quentin glanced over at them, and so did Ace on the opposite side of Claudette, a little curious, but neither said anything. Jake motioned her to follow and led her off a ways so they could talk privately.

“What’s going on?” asked Claudette, concerned because Jake basically never pulled her aside to talk in private, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Jake, “It’s not about me.”

“Who is it about?” said Claudette, worry amplifying.

“Meg,” said Jake, face gravely serious.

“What’s wrong with Meg?” asked Claudette, full-blown worried now.

“You know she’s planning a new project for after _Pitch Perfect,_ right?” asked Jake, lowering his voice a little.

Claudette nodded.

“Well, she wants to do _Dirty Dancing._ She got it in her head that it would be a good idea to do it as a big theater project with the rest of us,” Jake continued.

“Okay,” said Claudette, a little confused.

“She wants you to play the lead, Baby,” said Jake.

“Wait,” said Claudette, a little alarmed, “Me? But—that’s a lot of dancing, right?”

“Yeah,” nodded Jake, “That’s why I came to talk to you. She wants me to play the other lead.”

“And you want us to say no together?” asked Claudette nervously.

“Usually, yes,” said Jake, voice serious and a little worried, “But I’ve been talking with Dwight. You know how Meg had that really bad trial the other day—with Frank, and you and Kate and Ace?”

“Yeah,” said Claudette, voice small.

“Well,” continued Jake, “Apparently Meg’s acting like she’s good, but she’s been super discouraged ever since that. Feeling like no matter what she does, she can’t win, and it won’t go well. Dwight’s worried about her, and thinks that if this new idea falls through, it’ll crush her.”

“Oh god,” whispered Claudette, “I—I couldn’t tell at all. She looked so happy, and I thought, because of Susie, she was— But you’re right. Kate and Ace and I really let her down—we couldn’t do anything. It’s not her fault, though—it’s ours. Mine. We should have—”

“—Don’t feel so bad,” said Jake reassuringly, putting a hand on her shoulder, “Not your fault. That kinda thing happens to all of us. But I thought you deserved to know what’s going on with her before she asks you. Dwight didn’t want to tell you because he thought you’d feel guilted into performing, but I told him you’re a grown woman and you deserve to know so you can make an informed choice.”

“Thank you,” said Claudette, looking worried, “I would always want to know that kind of thing.”

“Do you think you’ll do it?” asked Jake, sliding his hands into his coat pockets.

“Yeah, of course,” said Claudette, still looking concerned and anxious, “Meg’s done so much for all of us—I’d do anything for her. I’m sure I’ll make an idiot out of myself, but if it’ll make her happy, of course I’ll do it.”

“Thanks, I knew you would,” said Jake, smiling gently, “You’re a good friend.”

“Not good enough,” said Claudette, distracted, “I couldn’t tell she was sad at all.”

“She’s a great actor,” said Jake, a little uncomfortable, “Come on, let’s let her know you’re interested.”

They walked together in silence until they were about halfway across the clearing, when Claudette turned to him and quietly said, “Do you think it’ll be terrible?”

“Dancing?” asked Jake, looking over at her in surprise. He’d known she wouldn’t want to do it, but he hadn’t expected her to look so completely sick and petrified at the thought.

She nodded, looking like she might pass out.   _I’m going to hell,_ thought Jake.

“Just because it’s in front of people? No, not at all,” he answered, trying to be reassuring, “I mean, look at me—you know I hate people; I hate dancing. This is both of those at once. You think I want to do this?”

“No,” admitted Claudette, sounding very genuinely sympathetic, “You do hate people and doing things with them.”

“Exactly,” said Jake “We’re in this together now.” He offered his hand for a fist-bump, and she took it.

Meg and Dwight turned towards the two of them hopefully when they saw them coming.

“Hey,” said Meg, trying to read from Jake’s face how it had gone.

“We talked,” said Jake, “And she’s good to play Baby.”

“Really?” asked Meg, surprised and excited.

Claudette nodded.

“Yes!” said Meg, throwing her arms around Claudette, “You’re going to do such a good job! Thank you, girl!”

Dwight looked over at Jake and gave him a _you did good_ smile. Jake nodded back.

“What will I need to do?” asked Claudette, smiling a little despite still looking nervous, and hugging Meg back quickly before letting go.

“Oh, just dancing,” said Meg, brushing it off, “Jake and I’ll teach you and everybody else. Maybe a little acting too—but I’ll write up script stuff for people, so you have some time, and I won’t give you a ton to memorize.”

Claudette nodded solemnly, still a little anxious and looking over at Jake and Dwight for support. They both did their best to give her some silently.

“We should probably get started on choreography then,” said Meg, turning to Jake, “This is going to be so cool! Come on.” He nodded and she started off, him right behind, when she suddenly turned on her heel and looked back at Claudette. “Oh, are you good with doing the romance? Like kissing Jake and stuff?”

“What?” said Jake, overlapping with Dwight’s completely shocked, “Huh?”

Claudette swallowed hard.

“I mean, not like in the _movie_ obviously,” said Meg, turning to Jake since he’d asked her first, “But you know—enough to sell it to the audience. Stage kissing.”

“She’s not—,” Jake started, pausing to look over at Claudette. She looked at him like a house cat trapped in a corner by a pack of stray dogs. _Oh hell no, I can’t be her first kiss. I’m not doing that to her. She’s probably never even held a guy’s hand—I can’t make out with her! I’ll never sleep again._

“Do you mind, C?” asked Meg.

Claudette looked at Jake and swallowed, then back at Meg. “Uh,” she said, voice choked, “Is it a big deal to you Meg?”

 “No,” said Jake a little too forcefully.

“I mean,” said Meg, sounding only a very little disappointed, “Not like—world-ending. If you don’t want to kiss him, you don’t have to.”

“Well, if you really want it to make the show good,” Claudette said, voice faltering.

 _Oh fuck,_ thought Jake, panicking internally. “No! No, I’m not doing that,” said Jake, turning on Meg.

“—Whoa, okay buddy,” said Meg, backing off, “I said you guys didn’t have to.”

“But—” said Claudette, giving Jake a confused look.

“If you all don’t want it, just means you’ll have to play up something else, right Meg?” said Dwight, very aware of Claudette’s slow internal death and Jake apparently a few seconds away from snapping. He took a step forward. “You know—something cute like a forehead kiss, or soulful gazing into eachother’s eyes.”

Claudette didn’t look like that was making her feel a whole lot better.

“Oh, toats,” said Meg, nodding, “I can figure out something. You two don’t gotta sweat it. We can always just old movie style fade to black.”

“Really?” said Claudette, massively relieved.

Meg nodded and grinned at her. “You good with that Jake?” she asked, turning to him.

Jake was distracted with sudden memories of several scenes from a movie he hadn’t seen in years he had almost forgotten about, and the thought of having to teach Claudette how to do the first dance was about doing him in.

“Jake?” said Dwight.

“Yeah,” said Jake without knowing for sure what he was answering.

Meg turned back to Claudette. “Okay! Settled then. Jake—I’m gonna go grab paper and pen. You know that clearing that’s a little ways in the forest on the north side of camp? Meet me there to choreograph. You got six minutes or I come hunt you down. Also,” she said, taking an unannounced flying leap at Jake. He managed to catch her on impulse, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed him on the cheek, “You’re the best and I love you guys for doing this!”

He tried not to smile and set her back down.

She turned on Claudette and threw an arm around her shoulder and tugged her close and kissed her on the cheek too. “Especially you,” said Meg, “Because I know you probably would usually rather die than do this.”

Claudette grinned as Meg let go of her, seeming solidly less worried.

“You good with it for real though?” asked Meg, putting her hands on Claudette’s shoulders, “Jake didn’t make you do this?”

“No,” said Claudette, shaking her head and smiling, “I’ll be okay doing it. Jake didn’t make me do anything.”

 _I’m going to hell,_ thought Jake.

“Sorry for being a baby about the romance stuff,” added Claudette a little meekly, “I just—”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Meg, cutting her off and patting her on the shoulder, “I wouldn’t want to kiss Jake either.

Jake sighed internally. _Okay._

“Right!” said Meg brightly, letting go of Claudette, “Jake—clearing—six minutes!” she backed up a few feet and finger-gunned them, then turned and ran off.

Dwight glanced at the other two. “I uh, guess I’ll hobble that way myself and talk to Kate about music. You two coming?”

“In a minute,” said Jake, “I want to talk to Claudette about the basics.”

“’Alright,” said Dwight with a nod, shifting his weight onto his walking stick and carefully heading back to the campfire.

“He’s getting pretty good at that,” observed Claudette with a smile, watching him go.

It was true. He still couldn’t run without losing his balance easily, but his coordination was surely and steadily improving bit by bit. Walking was manageable with the cane, although he often lost it during a first attack in trials, and Jake had made him about a dozen so far. He already had two more ready to go once Dwight inevitably lost this one to someone with a chainsaw. _Still,_ thought Jake, following Claudette’s gaze and watching Dwight retreat towards the campfire, _It’s good. God, it’s so much better than a few weeks ago._ He still wasn’t very helpful in trials, considering, but that wasn’t really what Jake had ever cared about. Jake was just relieved that this probably meant he would actually recover eventually, and even though he’d refused to entertain the possibility, Jake hadn’t been sure of that the whole time. It was an enormous weight off his chest.

“It’s progress,” agreed Jake, turning to her, “So. Do you know how to do any type of dance?”

Claudette stopped watching Dwight and focused on Jake. “Uh, not really,” she said self-consciously, “I mean, I’ve done a waltz before—but, like. A box step. With my dad. At a wedding.”

“That’s something,” said Jake encouragingly.

“Really?” asked Claudette, surprised, “It doesn’t feel like much.”

“Here,” said Jake, holding out his hands, “Practice. Just a box step.”

Claudette took a hand and looked embarrassed when he put his other at her waist but kept going.

“Okay,” said Jake, “So I go forward and you go back, then you go left, up, right, and back again. You remember. Simple.”

She nodded, and he stepped with her. It was slow, and clumsy, but more because she was nervous than because she didn’t know how to follow the directions. Claudette had a concentrated look on her face, eyes glued to their feet.

“Good,” said Jake as they came to a stop, “Now, here. Look up.”

She did.

“This is the biggest cheat when it comes to dancing,” said Jake, “You got to put a little pressure onto your hands. See?” He locked his arms so he was almost pushing her away with just the tiniest amount of force, but not quite. “You do that and I do that,” said Jake, “And you’ll be able to feel where your partner is without having to look at their feet. Go on. Lock your frame, and push back against me a little.”

Claudette very gingerly did for a second and then the force slacked off.

“You got to hold it,” said Jake patiently, “Keep you arms locked and keep pressure. You aren’t gonna hurt me.”

She did it again and held it better this time, looking up into his face for approval or adjusted instruction.

“Good,” said Jake again, “Locked your elbows?”

Claudette locked them and nodded.

“Now, don’t do the box step. I’m going to step forward, and you back, and then I’m just going to move,” said Jake, “Freestyle waltz, no steps. Just follow my lead. It’s going to be really easy. You’ll be able to tell if I’m going forward or back by the pressure in our arms, okay?”

She gave another nod and Jake stepped forward, and she went back, and then he moved right, and back, and right again, the beginnings of a slow, imperfect circle. Claudette held tension, but kept looking at his feet.

“Look at my face,” said Jake, “I know it feels like you have to see the feet to know where I’m going, but you don’t. Okay?”

Claudette looked up and made it about three steps before slacking tension in her arms and stepping on his foot.

“I’m sorry,” she said nervously, letting go of his hands, “Did that hurt?”

“No,” said Jake. It hadn’t. She wasn’t even wearing shoes, so the only real danger would be him stepping on her feet. “That was good. You had it, you just broke tension. Let’s try again.”

 Claudette hesitated and bit her lip nervously. “Jake, do you think I’ll be okay at it?”

“Yes,” said Jake, feeling minimally bad for tricking her into this and decently responsible for her welfare now, “It’s not as hard or bad as you think. Plus, I’ll be the one mostly teaching you to dance and acting with you, and I’ll take it easy on you. Promise.”

“Really?” she asked, looking surprised and relieved, “You won’t make fun of me?”

“No,” said Jake, a little exasperated. _Why does everyone assume I’m going to be as much of an ass as possible?_ “I’m not that mean,” he continued, “I’ll admit that sometimes I give people shit just because it’s fun, but you cry when you get embarrassed. I’m not heartless.”

“You mean it?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Jake.

“Thank you,” said Claudette, giving him a quick hug.

“No problem,” said Jake, feeling a tiny twinge of guilt but not showing it, “I promise to make this as painless as possible. For what it’s worth, she’s probably right that you’d be good for the lead.”

“Really?” asked Claudette, “I’ve never seen it. And I’m not much of an actress. But it kinda sounds hard, and scary.”

“It isn’t,” said Jake, “And we’ll both be doing it. Come on, let’s try this again.”

She took his hand and placed one at his shoulder while he placed his other on her waist.

“Lock your arms, keep a little pressure so you can feel the movement, and watch me, not our feet, okay?” he asked, watching to make sure she was following the instructions, “It’ll feel a little weird, but you’ll be able to sense the motion and it’ll be a lot easier than you think to keep up. Trust me?”

Claudette nodded, smiling up at him.

 

* * *

 

 

“I’m thinking probably we either choreograph the first dance or the last one first, because those are the big group numbers,” said Meg.

Jake nodded. “Makes sense, but you’ll have a hard time getting some of them to do the _Do You Love Me_ number. At first, anyway. It may seem weird, but you might actually want to start with _Time of My Life._ ”

“I thought about that,” said Meg, “But I think if we do _Do You Love Me_ and you and I show them first, we can find something everyone’s comfortable with—after all, nobody’s doing the same dance to that one.”

“Are they? It’s been a while,” said Jake.

Meg nodded. “Yeah, it’s just all to the beat. So, I’ve been thinking about what I bet I can get people to do and coming up with sets. And I talked to everyone and got a yes from Nea, Feng, Ace, Kate, Quentin, David, you guys, and, after a shit ton of begging, a maybe from Laurie. She said she’d come watch anyway, and I’ll take it. I know he can’t dance, but I was thinking if we go full theater, maybe we can get Dwight to play Billy? He doesn’t dance like at all in the movie.”

“Is that…Shit,” said Jake, trying to remember, “He’s…Johnny’s brother?”

“Cousin, but it’s who you’re thinking of,” said Meg, happy with him for remembering the film as well as he was.

 _That could be fun. Maybe,_ thought Jake. “Is he coming to watch? The practice, I mean?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Meg, “Why?”

Jake shrugged noncommittally. “You could talk to him about it then.”

She nodded. “Anyway, you said I’m supposed to come up with freestyle stuff on my own, and so far I’ve come up with like a variety of moves to show people to start with? See if you think they’ll work?”

Jake gestured for her to go ahead and then folded his arms and leaned back against a tree to watch.

“Okay, so here’s what I’ve got,” said Meg.

 

* * *

 

 

“Have you actually seen it?” asked Nea, nudging Feng with her knee.

They were sitting in the middle of a group of most of the other survivors in a little clearing just past the tree line. Across from them on their left, Kate and Ace were sitting together singing an 80s pop song Nea only vaguely remembered while Ace kept time, drumming his palms against a rock between them. On Kate’s other side, Dwight listened and watched. A few feet off on Feng and Nea’s right, David was conversing quietly with Quentin, Laurie, and Claudette.

“Oh, no,” said Feng, “Just like the one scene from the end—online.”

“Really? Then why were you so pumped to do it?” asked Nea. Feng had been even more into the idea than she had been when Meg had suggested it, which had been awesome, but thrown Nea for a loop, since she’d been expecting to have to sell the idea to her.

“It’s a classic film,” shrugged Feng, “And it’s called _Dirty Dancing._ ” She turned her head towards Nea and gave her a sly grin. “and Meg said I could have you as my dance partner, so.”

Nea nodded, devious smile playing on her lips, “Oh, well, in that case.”  She leaned over and kissed Feng, and when she pulled back she paused by her ear to whisper, “Let’s knock it out of the park,” which had sounded sexier and cooler in her head than it did when she actually said it, but Feng giggled and hooked her arm around Nea’s, so it was fine.

“Okay,” said Meg, stepping into the front of the half circle, Jake in tow. “Thanks everyone for being willing to do this! It’s still a work in progress, so some of this will probably change as we go, but I’m putting together scripts for people to look at too. I should get that done by the…end of tomorrow? In the meantime, for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie, basically there’s this sort of resort thing called Kellerman’s and this rich family, mom, dad, two daughters, goes there for a three week vacation. There’s like a shit-ton of rich people going here, and one of the big selling points is dance classes by some really good dance staff. One of the daughters, Baby, meets some of the workers at the resort and finds out one of them is in trouble, and agrees to learn how to do a dance so she can fill in for one of them, because none of the people who actually work there are available the day it needs to happen. A lot of stuff happens after that, but I’m not going to tell you more right now because I want you to read it or get it as like a real Meg movie the first time—not just some Wikipedia synopsis, but basically, the first dance Jake and I are going to teach is one that the workers are doing for fun in their off time when Baby first goes and meets some of them. It’s a super fun kinda sexy freestyle. Jake?”

He moved over opposite her and gave a nod.

“Oh!” said Meg, turning back to the gathered group, “Also, each set of couples will have a different dance to this song, and I’ll show you several types of moves. People can pick the thing they like best and we’ll start developing couple dances from there. It’s going to be super fun, you’ll see! You all can pick partners, but if you don’t, I’m assigning them. So yeah, same shit as gradeschool.” She turned back to Jake. “Ace. Kate. Hit it!”

“You broke my heart 'cause I couldn't dance,” said Ace, grinning at Kate, “You didn't even want me around, and now I'm back to let you know I can really shake 'em down.”

As both singers broke into “Do you love me?” together, full volume, Meg and Jake started to dance.

Moving in sync, Jake leaned forward, holding one hand out and snapping his fingers to the beat while Meg leaned back and brought her forearms horizontal in front of her and alternated, bring one up and the other down as she leaned back in increments to the beat. Jake matched her, leaning forward a little further on the beat, switching the hand he was snapping with. They kept going as she leaned forward and he leaned back, hips and shoulders and arms alternating from side to side with the beat in synch with each other. They switched and Meg started to shimmy in time to the beat while Jake did the twist in time with her. They’d barely kept that up for one line of the song before Jake grabbed Meg’s arm and spun her away from him, and then snapped her back in a twist twice as fast, bringing her to stop against his chest where he caught her and dipped her, spinning her in the dip in time to the beat. When she came up they danced close up on each other, hips swaying and motions almost snapping with the precise rhythm. Meg spun out and did a little prance, rotating in a circle in front of him, arms and feet moving up and down in time to the song, as behind her he swayed in time with her in a full-body motion, catching her easily and pulling her close in a twirl the second she finished her rotation.

“Damn, I want to do that,” whispered Nea to Feng amongst the sound of Ace and Kate’s surprisingly effective acappela ‘I can do the twist! Tell me, baby, do you like it like this?’

Jake and Meg spun apart with their left arms still wrapped around each other so they were beside each other facing the same direction in a crossover break, bobbing forward together in time to the music, and then Meg spun across him and the repeated the move with her on his opposite side. They went back to facing each other, almost grinding in time to the music for just a second, and then Jake spun her again and caught her, one arm behind her back, and Meg dipped until she’d gone so far she was almost doing a back-bend, and then snapped upright again and kept dancing, moving her shoulders to the rhythm and leaning back as Jake leaned forward, and forward as he went back, then both twisting in place, Jake going down while Meg went up, using her arms to fluff her hair above her head as her hips rocked.

Dumbfounded, Quentin looked at Laurie, who looked back with something between awe and horror, then both returned their focus to the dance. Between them David whispered, “I can no bend like that.”

Meg grabbed Jake’s arm and he swung her around and then between his legs, Tango style, and then back up against his chest, and she put her arms around his neck and they rocked for a second together, just keeping time, then Jake dipped her and, hands on her waist, lifted her from the dip and she locked her legs around his waist and they danced like that for a few seconds, Meg whipping back and forth to the music held up by Jake, Jake somehow holding her up and swaying with the beat as well, then he helped her jump down and spun her, and she spun him out of the turn, and they came together and started to sway together again, breaking the motion every so often to jerk left or right with the beat in sync, and then as Kate and Ace finished the verse Jake gave one final dip with a flourish, practically holding her up parallel to the floor, and they came to a stop, breathing hard.

“Woo!” shouted, Nea, breaking the silence, “That was fucking tight! Teach me to do that to Feng!”

Meg looked at her upside-down and grinned, and Jake pulled her back to her feet. The rest of the group broke into applause following Nea’s lead.

Mid-applause, Quentin noticed the terrified look on Claudette’s face. “Are you okay?” he whispered, confused.

“Uh-huh,” she said, looking faint.

“So,” said Meg, wiping sweat from her forehead, “That’s sort of what we’re working on. There’s gonna be slightly different stuff for everyone and we can add more, but if there were parts of that you especially want to learn, let me know. Let’s grab partners!

Feng grinned at Nea. “Do you have the arm strength to swing me between your legs?”

“One way to find out,” said Nea, making a muscle.

 

* * *

 

“Oh, yeah,” said Meg, “We got a lot more grindy dance moves.” She paused and leaned in close to Nea to whisper. “I just didn’t want to freak Claudette out—she’s agreed to do the lead.”

“Gotcha,” nodded Nea. “And for the lift thing you guys did, it’s dip first, right?”

“Here, put your hands on Feng’s waist,” said Meg, putting Nea’s hands in place, “Okay—now watch us—Jake!”

“One second!” he called back, then turned back to Quentin and Kate. “Okay, that’s almost it, just when you do the crossover break here, you’re not actually holding hands at all. He’s going to have his arm at your waist, and you’ll put yours on his far shoulder, other arms free. Just let go when you switch which side she’s on, got it? Then same position, just opposite arms. Try.”

“Sorry,” said Quentin, trying to follow the directions.

“Nah, you got it,” said Kate, spinning and snapping into place on his far side, “I think that was right this time!”

“It was,” said Jake, turning to go, “Back in a minute.”

“You’ve danced a lot, huh?” asked Quentin, trying to go back to one of the more basic moves, swaying with her in time.

“Fair amount,” agreed Kate, “But you’re not so bad either. You dance?”

“Never,” said Quentin, laughing, “I’m kind of amazed I haven’t stepped on you yet.”

“Don’t say that or you’ll jinx us,” teased Kate, twirling.

Across the clearing, Laurie sat watching, tapping her foot as Ace sang for the group. _His voice has to be getting tired, right?_ she wondered.

In the middle of the group, David and Claudette were struggling a little, but going over the little promenade Meg had done by herself and Jake’s twist.

She watched Nea dip Feng back and then lift her up as Feng made a leap, locking her legs around the other girl’s waist and swaying with the song.

 _They’re having fun,_ thought Laurie, smiling a little.

Jake left them and Meg to go back over to Quentin and Kate for a minute, and then he crossed to Claudette and David and spoke to them for a few seconds before nodding and switching with David. David gave Claudette a smile and then turned and headed in her direction.

 _Uh-oh,_ thought Laurie, watching him come.

“C’mon,” said David, offering her a hand.

“I don’t really dance,” said Laurie, “I never did.”

“An ahm shite at this myself, but ya got ta give it ah try. Is fun at least,” he said, still holding out the hand. “C’mon,” he prompted when she didn’t say anything, waving in a _come here_ fashion with the hand he was holding out, “Just for ah bit.”

“I watched them, but I don’t have any idea how to do that,” said Laurie, who never had been asked to school dances. Boys were always intimated by her. She’d been told by one once that she was too smart, and it scared guys off. Which wasn’t fair. She only did the work and enjoyed it—it wasn’t like she spent all her free hours studying advanced calculus. But, apparently it had been true, because no one had ever really tried with her. Which, consequently, meant she didn’t really know how to dance. At one point she’d known how to do the Hustle, but at _no_ point today had she seen anyone clap or go for a classic disco point, so she had a feeling trying any of that would probably just end up embarrassing her. And with that out, there wasn’t much she _did_ know how to do.

“I’m no ah dancer either,” said David, “Makes no difference ta me if ya mess up. I’m go’n ta.”

Laurie sighed and tentatively took the hand. “I’m only doing this for a minute,” she said.

David nodded, grinning at her. She tried not to smile.

“Okay, so, the part ah got down the best is the first part, with the leans and the arm stuff, that okay?” asked David, leading her to an open spot.

“Sure,” said Laurie, smiling in spite of herself.

“Here we go, so, is like this,” he said, showing her her part. “Ya rock yer arms above your head like so, an lean back, an then forward, yeah?”

Laurie nodded and copied him. It was pretty simple

“Right!” he said, extremely happy, “Now I got to snap like _West Side Story_. An we do it together.”

They did, rocking back and forth, and it was really easy. Simple, back and forth, to a beat. David was getting into it and making goofy faces at her, so Laurie laughed and lost count and had to find the pace again, but it wasn’t hard to do.

“Ya make it look easy,” said David, “Took me six minutes ta get this.”

“You’re lying,” said Laurie, smiling, “I was watching and it was only about three.”

“I was thinkin’ about if for the other three,” said David, smiling back. “The next part is a shimmy for you, an ah do a twist. That’s harder, I’m no goin’ ta lie.”

“I can’t shimmy,” laughed Laurie, “I’ll look stupid.”

“Not opposite me tryina twist,” said David, showing her. He was right.

Laurie burst out laughing. “David, you have to get on your toes,” she said, “Or it’ll never work.”

“What?” he asked, genuinely surprised, and trying it, “Like this?”

She nodded, watching him.

“I’m go’n ta look dumb if ahm dancin’ alone,” said David, “Come on.”

“Okay, but we’re both going to look stupid,” said Laurie, waiting to find the beat and then trying to shimmy in time with it.

David laughed and she stopped.

“What?” she asked, both amused and a little offended.

“Nothin’,” said David, “You doin’ that looked so natural ‘n it hit me how confused some’n’d be if ya broke out like that in the middle of a trial.”

Laurie snorted, imaging the blank look on her brother’s face she knew that would get. “They’d still just kill us.”

“Yah,” agreed David, trying to lower while twisting, “But they’d be damn confused for a second first.”

Laurie smiled and shook her head at him, then started to dance again, keeping time as she swayed.

“Hey, lookin’ good!” called Meg to them as she passed, moving to switch with Kate so she could relieve Ace as singer for a bit.

Quentin kept up with Meg for about five seconds then stood there watching as she broke it down.

“Come on, keep up!” said Meg playfully, putting her hands on his shoulders and trying to get him to improvise to the music.

“I’m trying,” said Quentin, doing his best, “You’re so fast.”

“Yeah, that’s it,” encouraged Meg, “Go for a dip!”

“I don’t think I can,” said Quentin a little nervously.

“Just give it a try,” encouraged Meg.

She moved him with her, and he tried the dip and managed it, but winced when he brought her back up.

“Sorry, I think I’m going to have to tap out,” said Quentin.

“You okay?” asked Meg, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

“Side-stitch,” said Quentin apologetically, putting a hand on his side near the back, “Just give me minute to breathe.”

“Okay,” said Meg, “I can just show you some of the footwork for the turns—that’s really easy.”

“Sure,” said Quentin, trying to smile through the pain and taking a step back so he could see her movements better.

Kate walked over to Ace and Dwight and crouched between them. “Hey boys, how’s it goin’?”

“It’s incredible,” said Dwight, watching the people in front of him with amazement, “I had no idea you all could do this. Everyone’s picking it so quick. And Jake and Meg looked great—I can’t believe they put that together in a couple hours.”

“I can’t believe she got Jake to do it,” said Ace quietly in a beat between singing out lyrics, only a few lines before the end of the song.

“Me either,” said Kate. She nudged Ace with her shoulder as he finished the song. “Here to switch with you, old man. Go ‘n have some fun.”

“Am I gettin’ raspy that fast?” asked Ace, putting his hand up to his throat.

Kate laughed. “No, but we’re probably gonna be doing this for a couple weeks. Don’t run yourself ragged day one. Besides, I’ve heard a lot of party stories from you—I want to see if you can really take over a ballroom like you said. Let’s see the moves.”

Ace stood up and gave her a deep bow. “With pleasure.”

Kate grinned at him as he went off to join the others.

“Sorry I’m not much for singing,” said Dwight, “I feel kind of useless over here.”

“Nah,” said Kate, smiling at him, “Moral support.”

Out in the clearing, Feng and Nea had their arms around each other and were moving in perfect sync, hips rotating to the beat. Nea put her hands on Feng’s butt and they swayed together, trying not laugh.

“You were right,” said Nea, “This is fun.”

She dipped Feng and they did the little half lift, Feng locking her legs around Nea and holding her face, leaning in close as Nea held her up.

“You’re a pretty good dancer,” said Feng playfully, “You’ve been holding out on me.”

Nea picked her up and helped her leap back onto the ground. “Not so bad yourself,” grinned Nea, leaning her forehead against Feng’s as they swayed.

Feng grabbed her hand and spun her out and then back in, so they came close together chest to chest. Feng giggled and Nea grinned and kissed her on the nose.

At the back of the group, Jake and Claudette were doing their own thing, instead of sticking to the current dance steps.

“It’s more important to get the rhythm,” said Jake, noticing her glance over at Meg and Quentin, “Everyone’s going to end up doing different steps anyway. You clearly got the beat, so how do you want to dance to it?”

She looked back at him and shrugged.

He let go of her. “Go on, try,” said Jake, making an open gesture, “Whatever you want.”

Claudette looked awkwardly towards the rest of the group and then held out her hands for Jake’s. He took them, and she moved her arms and shoulders back and forth in opposite motions, like some kind of very simple swing dance step. Jake went with it and started to add leaning forward and back to her little rhythm, hoping she’d pick it up. She did, and he smiled at her and she grinned back.

“Gonna spin you,” said Jake. He spun her traditionally, and then a quick away and back, catching her and going back to her little swing step. She was laughing when he caught her.

“I’ve never done anything like this,” said Claudette, leaning back as he leaned forward.

“Pretty fun?” asked Jake.

“It’s fun and terrifying,” said Claudette, “I don’t know which one more.”

“Here, try this,” said Jake, adding a little bit of fancier footwork to the basic forward-back step she was doing, doing a quick twist at the ankle of the foot not bearing weight and then kicking it up back behind him before resting on it and leading with the other foot again.

“How did you do that?” asked Claudette, staring at his feet.

 _You’re so easy to impress,_ thought Jake. It was kind of nice. “Watch, I’ll do it slow. It actually looks a lot fancier than it is,” said Jake, repeating the motion as she watched.

She tried, very slowly mirroring him.

“Yeah, you got it,” said Jake, try it a little faster.

They picked up speed and she missed her footing, then again and she got it right.

“Perfect,” said Jake, smiling at her and going back to the original dance step.

Claudette somehow beamed and looked deeply embarrassed at the same time. “Really?”

“Yeah,” said Jake.

“Thanks for being nice,” said Claudette as they danced, “I know you’re really good at this and it’s probably annoying I’m so slow.”

“Nah, I haven’t done it in years,” said Jake, twirling her, “And back then everyone was so uptight about getting it right, dancing with a partner was always like a competition to see who could go the longest without fucking up. Never very fun. This is at least more mellow.”

“This is mellow?” asked Claudette, looking back to see Quentin watching Meg’s footwork for a few seconds and then struggling to reproduce it and keep up with her as she grinned at him and bopped to rhythm, David trying to twist opposite Laurie, and Nea and Feng trying and failing to copy the between the legs slide Jake had pulled off with Meg.

“You’d be surprised,” said Jake, picking Ace out of the group as he made his way over, “Looks like you got lucky. A break from me. I’ll come back and teach you something else in a bit.”

He let go of her hands and nodded at Ace, who took her place and listened with interest as Claudette explained to him what she and Jake had just been doing.

Moving with ease through the slightly chaotic dancers, Jake made his was over to Kate and Dwight, and sat down on the far side of Dwight.

“Not bad, huh?” asked Dwight, looking over.

“No,” admitted Jake, taking in both the somewhat competent dancing and the enjoyment on people’s faces, “You were right. This was a good idea. For all of them.”

Dwight smiled. “I can’t take all the credit. Kate and Meg’s idea too.”

“Still,” said Jake, looking over, “You did good looking out for the rest of us. You always do.”

Dwight flushed a little and shrugged. “I don’t know about that, but I’m trying.”

“You’re doing pretty well,” said Jake, leaning back against a rock and watching the dancing in front of him. After a second he glanced over at Dwight again, watching the mixture of enjoyment and study in his expression as he watched the others dance. “You know,” said Jake, “back when we met, I thought your whole ‘leader’ shtick was a pile of shit, but it wasn’t.”

Dwight looked away from the dancing and over at him in surprise.

“I mean, look at them,” said Jake, turning his gaze back to the rest of the group, “They’re doing okay. Even here. Anyway, I was wrong about…this” he said, gesturing towards the group as a whole, “We’ve already lasted longer and better than I think any of us could have predicted. Mostly thanks to you.”

Surprised, Dwight stared him and took a second to say anything. “You really think so?” he asked after a second.

“Yeah,” said Jake, still watching the others, “I don’t say shit just to make people feel better. I mean it.”

“Well, thanks,” said Dwight, smiling at him, “I think everybody pulls their weight though.”

“They do,” said Jake, not looking back, “But take the compliment.”

Dwight nodded and leaned back next to him. “Thanks again for doing this,” he said after a second, “I know you…really didn’t want to.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to do a lot of things,” said Jake, glancing at Dwight, “And, as much as I hate saying this kind of shit, it’s probably worth a little suffering. Seeing how good it is for everyone else.”

“Is there anything that would make _you_ feel better?” asked Dwight.

Jake looked at him for a second, and then shook his head. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Two minutes of sleep, maybe.”

“I’ll bet,” said Dwight, “You want me to wake you up?”

“Sure,” said Jake, not opening his eyes.

As Jake went quiet, Dwight turned back to watching the others dance, listening to Kate’s singing and the sounds of murmuring voices and laughter. _It’s too bad Adam and Tapp didn’t want to do this,_ he thought, drumming his hand on his knee and only just then remembering to be a little bit disappointed he wasn’t going to be able to do any of this either. Still, it was pretty incredible. David had actually gotten Laurie to dance, Quentin didn’t look like he had anything on his mind except keeping up with Meg, Nea and Feng had been having a ball since this had started, and Claudette and Ace were laughing. _You guys did really good,_ thought Dwight, glancing from Meg, to Kate, to Jake.

“Hey,” he said to Jake after a second.

Jake cracked an eye.

“Sorry,” said Dwight, “I’ll start your two minutes over. I just wanted to say sorry—about earlier. When Meg and I gave you a hard time. You know I don’t actually think you’re an asshole, right?”

Jake shrugged. “I can be kind of mean.”

“So can we all,” said Dwight, “But you’ve had my back for ages. And you do stuff like this,” he added, gesturing to the people in front of them, “And trying to help me deal with not being able to function in trials. I appreciate it.”

Jake shrugged again and closed his eyes. “Not a big deal.”

“Okay, fine,” said Dwight, smiling and looking away from the dancers and back at Jake, “But for the record, you’re a pretty good person. And I’m going to say it very awkwardly out loud and make this an uncomfortable moment for both of us, because according to everyone else apparently that’s my role in the group now.”

Jake snorted and a smile flickered across his face, but he kept his eyes closed. “I’ll, uh, keep your opinion logged away,” he said.

“Cool,” said Dwight, looking back at the dancing.

Beside him, Jake cracked his eyes open and watched Dwight for a second, then smiled and closed them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While the Mambo used to be one of the most popular ballroom dances, and while by no means dead and forgotten, it's more recently been replaced by Salsa in a lot of places (although the dances are very similar (well, technically basically the same), only Salsa is generally danced much slower than a Mambo, and there are some stylistic differences and variations, the main one being Salsa is generally considered to be a dance to the melody, and Mambo a dance to the rhythm. That said, trying to dance to the rhythm of the Shrek 2 Holding Our for a Hero would be...something to see. While when I started writing a Dead by Daylight story one of the last things I would have expected to do is spend several hours researching popular dances from twenty years ago, I have no regrets, and it's actually a very cool and fun dance to do.  
> Dirty Dancing itself is a surprisingly deeper than you'd think 80s flick that looks like a cute romance but is secretly about income and class inequality and the realities of that, and worth a watch, but even if you've never seen Dirty Dancing, or have and aren't a fan, the soundtrack really has a couple of bops on it.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this one! It's a little bit of a break here before some of the shit to come. Thanks to everyone reading, long-time and newcomer, and everything in between. I really, really appreciate the feedback and support, and just getting to share my writing with people who enjoy it. Thanks again!


	38. Vigil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Huntress's former kids work on a plan. Laurie does her best to look out for a friend. Quentin tries to deal with his past, present, and very near future.

 

Feng sat, alone, at the edge of the clearing. She had picked out a spot still in easy view of the fire, but far enough away to give her some room to think in peace. She’d sort of been working on an idea ever since the last bit of information Philip had given them, about how trial realms worked, and not that she and Nea were together _all_ the time when they could be, but Nea was off taking a lesson from Adam with Claudette right now anyway, so it had seemed like a good time to chill and work on a couple of her potential new plans. As helpful as collaborating was, Feng still felt like she did a lot of her best strategizing alone. Plus, dance practice was great and she was getting _really_ fucking good at it, but she needed a breather before she got dragged into a new trial, and for Feng breathers tended to include a little time away from other people for her brain to reset too. Even though she’d already been at this for about half an hour, Feng was so deep in thought that she didn’t realize anyone had gotten close until they spoke.

“Hey, Feng—do you have a minute?”

She did, because half an hour had been sufficient mental recharge time, and she recognized the voice as Quentin’s, so Feng set down Nea’s sketch book and looked up. He was holding a fairly large toolbox. “Yeah. What’s up?”

“I wanted to talk about the Huntress,” he said, sitting down beside her.

“Okay,” prompted Feng, waiting to hear the idea.

“We’re kind of fucked,” said Quentin in an _as we both know so well_ kind of tone, “And I get why we can’t really try with her again, and need to basically stay the fuck out of dodge as much as possible, but it still feels kind of shitty to me to just…ditch her like that?”

“Yeah,” agreed Feng, “She’s crazy, but I kind of like her too. It’s like if a wild bear took a liking to you. I don’t really want to live in her cave or have her come live in my nice house, or to be near her when she’s hungry, but I’m be pretty impressed by her not eating me and giving me presents instead. She’s kind of nice, in a scary way. Plus, I feel bad that she thought we were calling her mom.”

“Yeah,” said Quentin, “me too.”

“There isn’t much we can do, though, right?” asked Feng, “We can’t talk to her, we can’t learn Russian in here, and if she sees us again, she might try to lock us up forever, and then we’d just get her and us in trouble. I kind of wish we’d never talked to her, because now I feel low-key shitty about it all the time, but we can’t do anything about that now either.”

“Well, we also can’t just hope we don’t get picked, or hide, or commit suicide every time we end up in a trial with her,” said Quentin.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Feng, surprised, “Suicide could work. If we just did that as soon as we hear her singing—”

“—Feng,” cut in Quentin, “Suicide is not a long-term fix. Plus, it’s a little harder to do on command then you might think.”

 “So, then, what was your thought?” asked Feng, circling back.

“About consistently escaping her? I don’t have one, and trust me, I’ve been trying,” said Quentin with a sigh, “But just in general, I had an idea. It’s not as useful as getting away, but it might be something.”

“And?” prompted Feng.

“You know how she seems to like shiny things?” asked Quentin, opening the toolbox and looking up at her nervously, hoping for approval, “Well, I was thinking we could make stuff for her. This is all the metal scrap I had and could trade people for, and it’s a lot. Jake’s got a solder and he said he’d let me use it. I mean, we don’t have electricity, but he’s figured out a way to kind of bypass that by heating it in the coals at the fire. If we polish up some of this stuff and shape it, we could make her jewelry or something.”

Feng blinked at him in surprise, because she would never have thought of this herself, and she would never have thought _Quentin_ would think of it in a million years. 

“I know we’re still gonna have to run if she sees us,” continued Quentin hurriedly, “But we both know that whenever that happens, we’re going to end up either getting caught by her again and getting her and all of us fucked over by the Entity, or we’ll get away from her and mess up whatever kind of relationship we established—probably forever—and also make her really sad. And I really don’t want to do either of those things.”

“Yeah,” nodded Feng, still sort of staring at nothing as she took in the idea.

“I thought maybe if we run away from her but leave her gifts, that’s something,” said Quentin, “She might be able to at least tell we don’t hate her, or want to abandon her. I’ve been trying to figure something out ever since we got out of the trail with her, and I know this isn’t much, but it’s the best I got,” He paused then, looking up from the toolbox to Feng. “What do you think?”

She didn’t know, because she hadn’t finished processing all of that yet, so she just stared at him for a second. _Give the Huntress gifts. Make her cute shit. We’re like—what even would that be? Your deadbeat kids who pay parent support? That’s so fucking wild. But maybe._ “Uh, yeah,” she said, breaking her train of thought to answer, voice getting more excited as she went, “No—yeah, I like it. We could try.”

Quentin looked happy and immensely relieved. “Okay, great,” he said, setting the box on the ground, then hesitating. “Oh, wait,” he said, looking over at her, “Do you have time to now? Or—”

“Yeah, I can do now,” said Feng, setting the sketchbook aside.

“Great,” said Quentin, hands pausing over the tools, “Do you have any idea what she would want?”

“Hmm, that’s a good question,” she answered thoughtfully, picking up a broken gear and turning it in her hand, “She’d probably like anything nice, right? And we know for sure she likes animals, rings, and necklaces. So that’s three things.”

Quentin nodded.

“Pretty stuff like her mask gauze,” continued Feng, ticking it off on her fingers, “Bright colors and intricate patterns, like the stuff in her house and her skirt, and useful shit like utility belts.”

“I don’t know if we want to make her more efficient,” said Quentin nervously.

“Yeah, good point,” agreed Feng, “So scratch the last one. Rings will be hard because we don’t know her ring size.”

“Oh,” said Quentin, looking surprised, “I didn’t—you’re right. We probably can’t do those, then.”

“Let’s go for just pretty metal stuff that looks like animals?” suggested Feng, “I’m not like, _great_ at blacksmithing, so that’s going to be kind of hard, but we could do just basic shapes with the metal and then paint stuff on.”

“That’s good,” agreed Quentin excitedly, “Let’s do that. We could draw patterns on and make it something bright and kind of nice, even if we don’t know shit about making jewelry—you don’t, right? I don’t, so.”

“No, me either,” Feng confirmed, “Or a whole lot about drawing, but I got the basics, and color is easy.”

“I’m not Jake, but I think I could beat a flat sheet into something close enough to look like her mask if we just add detail after to help it,” offered Quentin.

“Oh, that’s good,” said Feng, thinking hard, “Because it’s a cute rabbit and her, like, symbol. Why don’t you start with that, and I’ll do a pendant and paint a bird on it like the one she gave me—I can use some of Nea’s stuff for that.”

“That’s a good idea too,” said Quentin, “You’ve still got it, right? So you’ve even got a reference.”

Feng nodded, taking the little red bird out of her jacket pocket for him to see.

“I’ve got some bigger pieces that might work as a base for that,” said Quentin, digging through the box, “Here, what do you think?”

He held out a couple chunks of metal, each about palm size. Feng selected the one that was closest to being round already.

“You already got tools for this?” Feng asked.

Quentin nodded, opening a drawer in the toolbox to show her.

“Oh shit,” she said, leaning over and eyes widening in surprise--impressed, “That’s the good stuff—that’s the engineering stuff. Where did you get that?”

“I traded David for a bunch of my hemorrhagics,” said Quentin, shrugging and smiling, a little embarrassed.

“This one has a solder,” said Feng, pointing to it in the kit, “You won’t need Jake’s.”

“Oh,” said Quentin, flushing.

He’d come up with a pretty good idea and was letting her use all of his shit without trading, so Feng decided to let it slide and not drag him for apparently not knowing what a solder looked like. “Come on. Let’s try to figure this out,” she said, taking a couple of clips and a pair of pliers out of the box.

‘Figure this out’ was right, because neither of them knew what the fuck they were doing.

Feng’s few attempts to help Nea design and paint a logo for herself were basically Feng’s only recent artistic endeavors, and Quentin was just as new to metalworking as she was. Still, a lot of it was fairly intuitive, and they’d done a pretty good job of choosing tasks that could be accomplished at their skill level. Most of the time they were probably not doing things very close to the intended way—Feng used wire cutters to clip the jagged edges off her hunk of metal, because her previous knowledge of shaping things was mostly comprised of using paper and scissors, and Quentin spent almost half an hour trying to hammer his chunk of metal before Jake took pity on him and went over the process of how to use a solid base to beat against when shaping—but they were making progress.

And they weren’t doing badly.

Even more surprising to Feng, it was kind of enjoyable. Working with her hands was kind of mindless and busy at the same time, and Feng enjoyed having an excuse not to think about anything responsible. Plus, she’d felt more bad about the Huntress than she’d been willing to publicly let on, and the idea of maybe somewhat salvaging the damage she’d unintentionally done was a massive weight off her shoulders.

“Hey, can you pass me the solder?” asked Feng, in a bit of a hurry. They didn’t have anything to plug the solder into, so following Jake’s misuse example they’d been heating it in the coals by the fire and then bringing it over to use it for as long as it stayed hot, and then running it back to heat up again, so it was only usable in fairly short spurts. She’d finished picking out and shaping a piece of metal to use as a connector so there would be something attached to the top of her pendant you could run a chain through, but the solder was only maybe still hot enough to melt something in place. “Wait, nevermind,” she added, spotting it.

Quentin was bent over his own work and it was just on the far side of him, maybe three feet away. She reached across him and picked it up, but as she drew it back, only half paying attention, Quentin shifted, realizing she’d moved and trying to see where she was, and Feng bumped her elbow into his back trying to jerk her hand back quick enough not to hit him with the solder and as she snatched her hand away he flinched and sucked in a sharp breath.

“Shit—oh shit, did I burn you?” she asked, setting the solder down and trying to get a look to see if she had.

“No,” he said quickly, turning his back away from her and gritting his teeth, trying to handle what she was pretty sure was a decent amount of pain, “It’s okay—you didn’t hit me.”

“It sounds like I did,” said Feng, trying to get a look at his back again and feeling decent amounts of both concern and confusion.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, moving out of the way again, “It’s fine.”

“I can get you something to put on it if I burned you,” said Feng, almost annoyed now that he kept denying it when she’d pretty clearly jabbed him, “It was an accident—you don’t have act like I didn’t do it, I don’t feel _that_ bad about it.”

“You didn’t burn me,” protested Quentin again, “I got bruised practice fighting yesterday. You just bumped it.”

“Oh,” said Feng, processing that for a second. “Why didn’t you just say that before?”

“Because it hurt and I was distracted?” said Quentin, “Seriously though—I’m fine.”

 “What happened,” said Feng, “Did Kate flip you?” That had happened to her one of the times she’d tried to join in the fight-training group, and it hadn’t been fun at all.

“Roundhouse kicked me,” said Quentin, going back to working on the mask.

“Does it hurt a lot?” asked Feng.

“Well, yeah,” said Quentin, glancing over, “Have you ever been roundhouse kicked by Kate?”

“No, but I believe you,” said Feng, thinking back, “I’ve seen it. You still good for trials?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Quentin, tone very ‘don’t even worry about it.’ “It’s nothing. Kate did this with broken ribs, and Jake with a fucked up back after the stuff with the Cannibal. Even having an eye swollen shut was harder for me than this is—it’s no big deal.”

He went back to the mask and then hesitated and glanced over at her for a second like he might say something, but he didn’t.

“What?” said Feng, catching the look.

“Nothing,” said Quentin, looking guilty for a second and then recovering. “How, uh—how’s it going with Nea?” he asked, using a metal file to try and sand down a rough edge on the mask.

“Good,” said Feng, instantly forgetting to ask him why he’d looked guilty and feeling warm inside, “She’s great. I mean, obviously having a girlfriend is cool, but it’s also just kind of nice to have someone to talk to. Take naps with. You know.”

“A girlfriend and a friend?” said Quentin.

“Yeah,” said Feng, “I have been _so_ much happier.”

“I’ll bet,” said Quentin, smiling, “I’d kill for a nap.”

Feng laughed. “How long has it been?”

“I don’t know,” answered Quentin distractedly, fiddling with the mask, “six—seven years?”

“Damn, I’d kill for a nap too if I was you,” said Feng. Then her brain processed what it had heard. “—Wait, _seven_ years?”

Quentin missed a swing with the hammer and slammed it into his thumb and looked over at her, and she could tell immediately from the ‘ _oh shit’_ expression on his face that he hadn’t meant to say that and it was probably true.

“I didn’t—” Quentin started.

“—Oh my god,” said Feng quietly, and he stopped. _Fucking seven years? I mean I know that’s not Laurie-bad, but shit. That’s…hang on. 2017-7. 2010? _“How old were you when you got here?” she asked, aghast.

“I don’t know how old I am now,” said Quentin, shrugging a little hopelessly.

“…I’m sorry,” she offered after a second, awkwardly. Not sure what else to say. “I didn’t know.”

He didn’t say anything, just sort of made an ‘it’s no big deal’ gesture.

“Are you…okay? Do you like…need to talk about that?” asked Feng, trying to figure out what she was supposed to say. She tried to think about what Claudette would have said to her. “I mean, you don’t have to say anything, but if you want to.”

“There’s not a lot to say,” said Quentin after a moment, “I’ve been here awhile. I don’t know what I’ve missed, or what things will be like when I get out of here.”

“Is that…sad?” asked Feng, trying her best.

Quentin shrugged. “I wouldn’t know what to be sad about.”

They were both quiet for a second. Feng shifted uncomfortably, having to work harder than usual not to think about her own parents. “How old were you?” she asked again after a second.

“Sixteen,” said Quentin.

“Wow,” answered Feng, letting that slowly sink in, “I mean, I knew you were young, but. You’re definitely not sixteen anymore.”

He shrugged again.

“Wait, are you underage?” asked Feng, “Have you never had alcohol?”

“That’s where your mind went?” asked Quentin, grinning at her.

“Kind of, yeah,” said Feng, “It was that or feel shitty about leaving a literal child to die so many times in trials.”

“I’m not younger than the rest of you,” protested Quentin, “Laurie was seventeen and she seems like she’s at least as old as Kate now.”

“Laurie’s been here since 1978,” said Feng, “So by that math, you’re probably not even quite _eighteen_ yet. You’re the team baby.”

“I’m not the baby,” argued Quentin.

“Sixteen,” said Feng to herself, disbelieving.

“I’m at least as old as Claudette,” said Quentin, “If it’s at least 2016 outside, maybe as late as 2018, that means I’ve aged 6-8 years. I’m at least 22.”

Feng shook her head at him. “Does Laurie look 57? Team baby.”

“Okay, I’m going back to the campfire,” said Quentin, standing up in half-serious defensiveness.

“Wait,” said Feng, grabbing his wrist, “At least let me see the mask you made first.”

Quentin sighed, knelt back down and picked it up, then handed it to her.

Feng took it and turned it over in her hands. It was rough, but it was definitely recognizable, and it was sort of pretty—in a way. Shiny. “Not bad,” she said, turning it to face him and pointing to areas on it as she spoke, “Try to smooth it out, here and here especially, and then maybe add some paint to parts of it. You could just make it a perfect match, like white and stuff, but you might also just keep the shape and then add pretty decorations on it instead. Up to you.” She handed it back over.

“How’s yours coming?” asked Quentin.

She held it up for him to see.

“Wow,” he said, taking it and looking at it carefully, “You’re really good at that. I didn’t know you painted.”

“I don’t,” said Feng, flushing, “Until like a couple weeks ago. Nea’s been showing me.”

“Well, she’s doing a good job. You’ve got a knack for it,” said Quentin, passing it back.

“Thanks,” said Feng, taking it and looking at it herself. She didn’t think it was very good, but she’d gotten a lot of the shading Nea had been trying so hard to show her down, and she smiled in spite of her own disapproval at the work when she thought about how happy it would probably make Nea to see she was finally improving at that. “Oh, fuck,” she said suddenly as her arms started to vanish. She looked up to see if Quentin was going too. He wasn’t.

“Good luck,” said Quentin, “I’ll take all of this stuff back to the fire.”

“Okay,” said Feng, passing him her necklace while her arms were still corporeal, “Wish me luck it isn’t the Huntress.”

“Oh, on second thought, do you want to take yours? It’s already pretty good, and if it is her,” said Quentin, holding it back out. But as she reached out her hand to take it, Feng vanished.

After she disappeared, Quentin slowly packed up their things, holding his Huntress mask for a couple of seconds and running his hands over the bumps he still needed to fix, thinking.

From a little way into the woods where she’d been collecting stones and stakes to bring into trials with her as weapons, Laurie watched him. She hadn’t come into the woods to spy—that had been on accident at first. But when she’d heard them, she’d stopped and stayed, because something had been bothering her for days now, and she’d been holding onto a worry she couldn’t quite be sure of. Even before Laurie had been in a trial with him and noticed he was a little stiff, or she’d noticed him start writing in the back of his notebook instead of the front, and long before Feng had bumped the injury on his back and he’d lied to her, Laurie had been apprehensive. She’d been on edge since his and Feng’s trial with the Huntress, but unsure what to do. Really, she still wasn’t sure, but watching him picking things up, for reasons she couldn’t place, Laurie had the distinct feelings she was all out of time.

She didn’t know what she was going to do, or what she should do, but Laurie had learned over the years to trust her gut. So, after a couple more seconds, when she was sure no one else was paying attention, Laurie walked over.

Quentin looked up when her shadow fell over him, surprised but not alarmed, and waited to hear whatever it was she’d come to say. As Laurie came to a stop above him and looked down at the little metal mask he was holding, a bit rough but recognizable as the Huntress’.

“We’re working on an idea for how to deal with the Huntress,” he said awkwardly, since it had been several seconds, and she hadn’t said anything yet.

Laurie didn’t respond to that. She glanced over her shoulder towards camp, and then crouched across from him.

“What’s happening?” asked Quentin, looking a little apprehensive.

“What happened to your shirt?” asked Laurie, voice level and calm.

“M—what?” said Quentin, paling a little, “It tore. I don’t know when.”

“I know you said that, but you’ve been walking stiff since then, like you were injured. And I saw Feng bump you,” said Laurie again, eyes fixed on him, “And you lied to her, about Kate.”

“I didn’t lie,” said Quentin, “And why were you spying on us?”

“Because I’m worried about you,” said Laurie honestly, not feeling at all ashamed about eavesdropping. “And you did lie. You said you got hurt fighting Kate, but she didn’t practice at all yesterday. She was helping Meg plan musical numbers for _Pitch Perfect_ for hours _—_ they made me leave so I wouldn’t overhear anything.”

“I guess it was the day before yesterday, then,” said Quentin defensively, “My concept of time isn’t great here.”

“Then show me the bruise,” said Laurie, completely undeterred.

He recoiled, like he thought she might try on her own whether he let her or not.

“I thought so,” said Laurie, watching him with a steady gaze, “Quentin, what’s going on? Just tell me the truth.”

“I—” He stopped, looking like he genuinely couldn’t believe this was happening.  “Look, I don’t really want to talk about it,” he said after a second, “Can we not?”

Laurie shook her head.

“Laurie, please,” said Quentin, looking harried.

“Why would you lie to her?” asked Laurie, voice still calm and not accusing, but completely unphased by his request for her to stop, “It isn’t like you. You’re smart about anything dangerous. I would think you would tell people. But you aren’t. You got hurt during your trial with the Huntress, and you stayed hurt when you got back. That’s never happened before. Not with anything like a serious wound. If you have any reason to think that rule might have changed, you would have told us—you would have to know people need to know that. So, there’s got to be something I don’t understand going on. But whatever that is, you’re in danger. Aren’t you?”

Quentin watched her as she spoke, looking cornered. “No, it’s not like that,” he said when she’d finished. He was doing a good job of looking like he meant it, but she could see his fingers fidgeting nervously against the ground.

“Prove it,” said Laurie, indicating his back, “Let me see.”

“No,” said Quentin a little too fast, “Can’t you just let it go?”

“You mean just let you be in danger alone?” asked Laurie, tone indicating how stupid she thought that was, “No.”

“I got injured, but it’s fine,” said Quentin, “It’s not a big deal. I’m not in danger.”

“Then why won’t you let me see?” said Laurie.

Agitated, Quentin was quiet for a second, thinking, then looked back up at her. “I would really appreciate it if you’d let it go?” he said, hoping to appeal to their friendship, “I have it under control.”

“You are in danger then,” replied Laurie, watching him carefully.

“No—well…” Quentin caught the hard look she was giving him and stopped, face falling. She wasn’t going to let this go. Quentin let out a long breath and glanced towards the campfire, then rubbed at the corner of his eye with the palm of his hand, looking exhausted.

Laurie waited.

“Look, I was planning to talk to everyone about it,” said Quentin finally, voice tired, “Eventually. Just, it seemed like all it would really help do is freak people out. And I kind of think people freaking out makes him stronger.”

“’Him.’ The Nightmare did this?” asked Laurie, checking a suspicion.

“Yeah,” said Quentin quietly, giving in. “It’s not bad, but it’s real. So.”

“He got to you outside of a trial? No—you were in a trial. With the Huntress. And trial wounds don’t last,” said Laurie, puzzled.

“Look, for whatever reason—maybe because we’re connected, from before, but,” Quentin paused, like he didn’t want to keep going. After a second he did, though. “You know I never sleep because I was always afraid of what would happen? Even though you guys are fine?”

Laurie nodded, watching him with concern.

“I was actually right to be worried about it,” said Quentin, “I finally fell asleep.  And that happened.”

 _Oh God. Then._ Laurie didn’t say anything, but she met his eyes, trying to look less scared than that made her.

“I think you guys are fine,” continued Quentin, putting a brave face on it, “If he could fuck with any of you, he’d have done it by now. I kind of think even he didn’t know that his thing would still work on me until it happened. If he had, he would’ve tried way harder to push me. But he knows now.”

Quentin looked at her, and he seemed calm, maybe just a little tired, but there was a flicker of something else buried there. Hidden well. Regret, pain maybe? Laurie didn’t feel good suddenly, like she might be nauseous. She had suspected something was wrong ever since he’d come back from the Huntress trial that had been so strange, but she hadn’t thought it would be like this. _He’s going to die,_ thought Laurie, heart sinking, _He can’t die._

“Obviously I’m going to do everything I can not to fall asleep,” said Quentin, “And I don’t think I’ll mess up. This is the first time in years that I’ve fallen asleep, and I’ve gone over all the angles. His trial version of the dream world isn’t real enough to do any permanent damage to me. It’s more like being a little drugged than actually asleep, and I’ve been in two with him since the Huntress, and nothing’s changed about that. Plus, you don’t dream when you get knocked out, so he can’t just beat me over the head with something. The only reason this happened at all was because I was careless and in a situation I’ll probably never be in anything close to again, and I’m definitely not making the same mistake twice. So, it won’t be easy for him to get me. And I thought—”

“—But if you fall asleep, you’re dead?” cut in Laurie, still trying to really let that information sink in.

“I…Yeah,” said Quentin, “but—”

“—You should have told us,” said Laurie, voice full of disappointment and concern, “What if you’d died? Or just disappeared, and we never even knew what had happened to you?”

“I was going to,” said Quentin hopelessly, “I just wanted some time to figure everything out and come up with a plan first. And I left notes in my journal for you guys, just in case I fucked it up.”

“Quentin,” said Laurie, giving him a look somewhere between pained and disappointed _,_ “It’s been almost two weeks.”

“I know, I know,” said Quentin, looking away and sounding a little frayed, “It just didn’t seem like telling everyone would help. There isn’t really anything people could do, except worry about me. There’s already so much going on, and to worry about—And plus, I made shit hard enough for everyone already just bringing him here with me.”

“It’s not your fault he exists and no one thinks that,” argued Laurie, sitting down beside him, “And if we knew it was so high stakes, we could wake you up, or even kill you in trials if you started to fall asleep and it came to that.”

Quentin shook his head, “It would take something _I_ can’t even think of to make me fall asleep. I don’t think anyone would see it coming, and you all can’t just shadow me 24/7 in every single trial.”

“Maybe, but it’s still better than nothing. Aren’t you the one always trying to get the rest of us to try for small chances against the odds?” asked Laurie.

He let out a tired sigh and nodded, looking worn out and guilty and miserable. “Yeah. I…I was going to tell the others. I _am_ going to. I’m just tired. And I wanted to think of a solution before I told people there was a problem.”

Laurie shook her head at him in disbelief, not saying anything. He watched her nervously.

“You’re angry at me,” he said, looking sorry. A half question.

“Yeah,” said Laurie, “I am. Why? Why would you do that? You could be dead.”

Quentin turned away from her, looking miserable.

“I don’t understand,” said Laurie a little more wounded than angry now, and trying to lean so she could see his face better, “You’re smarter than that.”

He tucked his knees up to his chest and was silent for a second before answering, staring off into the forest across from them. “I didn’t want anyone to know,” said Quentin finally, voice quiet, “…how I’m doing. ‘Cause people would ask. I thought if I took a little time, I could fix that first, and then...” he sort of shrugged, and looked away.

Laurie was quiet too then, watching him and not saying anything, because she knew how that felt. She almost never wanted people to know how she felt about things. Especially with her brother. No one would understand, and it could only make people think she was crazy, or weak, or stupid, or far too damaged to fix. And maybe all of that was true, but she didn’t want other people to know it. _I still don’t know you very well, I guess,_ thought Laurie, feeling disappointed in herself, _I should have been paying attention._ It made her sad. She hadn’t wanted to live long enough to see anyone else here get like her. Quentin didn’t look like being isolated was helping him, though. He looked lonely, and small. “Has keeping everything to yourself helped?” she asked after a second. A sincere question.

“No,” said Quentin quietly.

“You could tell me,” said Laurie after a moment, “If you want to.”

“You’d think less of me,” replied Quentin, turning his head away from her.

“I don’t think I could,” said Laurie, and then after half a second she realized how that had sounded when Quentin turned back and gave her a disbelieving look, almost laughing. “No—I didn’t mean it like that!” she added hurriedly, flushing, “I meant that I have a pretty strong opinion of you already and it would take a whole lot more than you could probably tell me to change it, not that I already think so badly of you that I couldn’t think any worse.”

Quentin shook his head and looked away, but at least he was smiling. After a few seconds the smile faded, though, and he looked back at her, face grave again. He started to say something and then stopped, glancing her way and then off into the forest again, resting his chin back on his arms.

“Are you glad?” she asked seriously, making a guess, “That everything will be over?”

“No,” he said immediately and with great finality, looking back at her, almost alarmed, “No, it’s not that. Just.” Quentin exhaled slowly, trying to make a decision, and then he kept going, voice slower, more tired. “I know I’m good at staying awake,” he said, looking over at her and gesturing with an arm like he was trying to explain something, “And I’ve thought everything to death, trying to figure out what I can do not to ever fall asleep again. But he’s smart, and I can’t…” he stopped, suddenly having a hard time continuing. After a second, he took a breath and kept going, and when he did his voice sounded hollow and rough, “I’m not giving up, but I can’t stay awake forever, and we both know that. Not if he really tries to go for me. Eventually, he’s going to find a way to force me—And maybe he won’t kill me the first time—maybe it’ll be several; god knows he likes to fuck with me—but whatever happens, it’s gonna be different. In trials, you heal after, so it’s kind of like it never happened. But…With this…” He shrugged, trying to put a brave face on, but looking sad and spent.

Laurie waited, watching him in silence and trying hard to understand how he felt. Quentin was quiet, though, watching the woods opposite them blow in the breeze, and as she waited, Laurie thought about what he’d said. She understood some of it—always knowing there was going to be someone after you, never, ever giving up. But she knew at the same time that for him, it was a vastly different kind of chase. She wouldn’t care that much if Michael killed her for real, because at least it would be over, but that wasn’t the same. Everything was already real for her. Even thinking about him just made her sad and angry. This wasn’t like that.

“I’ve spent so much of my life running away from this one bad thing,” continued Quentin finally, voice quiet, “and I’ve lasted so long, but. I think I’m probably going to die?” He took a breath, trying to keep his voice level. “I hate that fucker so much. And I know him—I know how he is, what he wants. What he gets off on. And even though I know that, I can’t stop—”

He stopped, staring at nothing for a few seconds as Laurie watched. She had seen him look rough before, but this was something different, and it made her sad in a way she wasn’t used to. She had gotten so used to feeling nothing after years and years of suffering in this place, everything was strange and painful now, trying to remember how to do it, and then having to go through it again.

It wasn’t something Laurie had ever thought about before, but as Laurie watched him it occurred to her that Quentin was one of the toughest people she had ever met, in his own way. _It’s like what David said,_ she thought, _Not big or powerful, but strong because he keeps getting back up when he should be dead. The kind of tough David thought was the strongest._ She wasn’t sure though, looking at Quentin, that he was going to get back up this time.

“I don’t know what he’s going to do to me,” said Quentin after a minute, looking back over at her finally, eyes glossy and expression hopeless, “But he’s going to get what he wants, and I can’t stop it. I’m living every second knowing that I’m going to let him beat me in the worst possible way, because I can’t…” he hesitated, swallowing, “Because I’m just…”

Laurie waited a second, but he didn’t keep going. He stayed still, staring out at nothing, knees tucked up to his chest. “Quentin?” she asked after a second.

“I’m so fucking scared,” said Quentin, voice almost a whisper. His eye met hers for just a second and she could see it, and then he looked away, too ashamed to meet her gaze. “I know that’s what he wants, but I still can’t stop it,” said Quentin, “I can’t. It’s going to make him so fucking happy, but I can’t…” he stopped, unable to keep going this time.

“Hey,” said Laurie softly, reaching over and putting an arm around him and using it to tug him the two inches closer it took for them to be leaning against each other. He let her move him, leaning his head against her knee. “We’re not going to let that happen,” said Laurie, “None of us. You know you’re not alone in this, right?”

“I’m always alone with him, in the end,” said Quentin, and his voice cracked.

“That’s not true,” said Laurie, shifting to try to get him to look at her, “You know it’s not.”

Quentin swallowed, looking rough, and turned his head away so she couldn’t see him, but she still heard his breathing get ragged.

 _I don’t know how to help him,_ thought Laurie with a sinking feeling, _I used to be better at this sort of thing, but I don’t know how anymore._

She wondered if there was anything someone could have said to her if she were him that would have helped. Laurie had been through more than her fair share of hell, but it wasn’t the same thing. Michael was her brother and that was shitty, but he wasn’t like the Nightmare. The Nightmare had been chasing Quentin since he was four, and their battle was very different from hers. Laurie had lost friends too, and she wanted to scream and cry and break things when she thought about her sister, and Annie, Lynda, her life, and how she couldn’t even understand what she had done to make him want to kill her. Why this had happened—why it had to be her brother, not some stranger. But she had never lost to Michael. Not really. He kept killing her, sure, but she could walk that off, and every time he saw her alive again or safely running out of a trial, it was as big a win for her as it was for him when he got the knife through her heart. It was a long, drawn out conflict that hadn’t ended yet, not a repeat performance. Quentin had lost before. And he wasn’t being hunted by someone who wanted to kill him. He was being hunted by someone who wanted to tear him apart.

“See, this is why I didn’t want to tell anyone,” said Quentin, angry with himself, “I can act tough when I have to, but I can’t do it all the time. If everyone’s waiting for me to break, they’ll notice, and I don’t want people to know—It’s pathetic.”

Laurie tried to think of something good to say, but instead she said, “Why did you tell me?”

“I don’t know,” said Quentin, sounding miserable and worn out, “I guess even the truth was better than you thinking I wanted to die. Because then you might change your mind again.”

 _That sounds like you,_ thought Laurie, smiling a little. “It’s cool for you to die and not me?” she joked softly.

“It’s definitely not cool for me to die,” said Quentin, shaking his head and looking just a little better for a moment, “I would really, really, so much prefer not to do that.”

As he stopped speaking, his expression slowly got distant again, and he turned his head away. Quentin had been doing a good job of avoiding looking at her, so Laurie let go of his shoulder and moved until she was sitting across from him instead of beside him and matched his posture again, knees to chest and arms on knees. She reached over and found his hand and wound her fingers through his, and Quentin finally looked up at her as she did.

 “You know, it’s not bad that you’re scared of him,” said Laurie, hearing the wind tug at the tree bows above them and watching it rustle his hair as he looked back up at her, “Everyone is—I’m scared of him. That’s not a kind of losing. People like him want to think differently, but there isn’t any respect in fear. He’s just slimy and gross and terrible. I’d be scared of a garbage disposal if my hand was in it, but that doesn’t make it better than me.”

Quentin gave her a half-smile but didn’t respond. He looked down at the hand she was holding.

“We aren’t going to just let you die,” continued Laurie, “This is another thing we have to look out for, sure, but we’ll figure it out. Like we always do. And you’re right—it would practically take a miracle for _anyone_ to get you to sleep,” she paused, hoping the lightness in her tone would make him smile, but he didn’t look much better than when the conversation had started, and that worried her. “I know you’re scared, but you have to believe me,” she said, tightening her grip on his hand and trying her best to make him, “Over my dead body. You’re staying alive.”

He was quiet for a second, looking at their hands, and then he looked back up at her. “Well, you are pretty hard to kill.”

Laurie felt a wave of relief pass over her as he smiled at her. _Finally. I finally said something right!_

“Thanks,” added Quentin after a second, taking a shaky breath. “And…uhm…If you would not tell anyone how much of an emotional shitshow I am, I would really appreciate that.”

“Of course. As someone who has had a thoroughly unenjoyable public breakdown, I would never do that,” said Laurie, “I’m not a monster.”

He gave a weak smile. “Come on, it wasn’t that bad.”

“I screamed at everyone and beat the crap out of you and then cried for like fifteen minutes,” disagreed Laurie, letting go of his hand and moving to sit in a more relaxed position beside him, “It was pretty bad.”

“Okay,” admitted Quentin, “But you had a good reason.”

Laurie smiled, and then stopped and mentally shuddered when she remembered for real how incredibly embarrassing it still was to think about, which was why she’d been trying not to ever since it had happened. _…God. That was…Not great._ It took her a second  to break that train of thought, and when she did and turned her attention back at Quentin, he looked distracted again.

 _I should do something,_ thought Laurie, _There has to be something I can do, doesn’t there? Isn’t that why I decided to stay alive? But what? He’s right. I can’t force him to stay awake. No one can. God, I’ve known something was wrong for two weeks and I did nothing. Why? What if it was already too late? And now what? I don’t know how to help him stay alive. I don’t even know what to say to him. Fuck. Fuck, I’m…_

“I’m sorry,” said Laurie, feeling sad and worried and not used to having to deal with feeling so much at all. He looked over at her in surprise. “I should have talked to you about this the day I noticed, but I didn’t know what to say, so I waited. I snapped at you for not telling anyone, but I’m the one who should have done something. And I’m sorry I’m not better at this,” added Laurie, feeling drained, “It’s like it’s been so long I’ve forgotten how to do normal person things, like friends. I’m not good at it anymore.”

“That’s not true,” said Quentin, “You’re a good friend. You protect everyone, and you do movies with Meg, and blackjack with Ace. You teach fighting.”

“I go through the motions,” said Laurie, shaking her head at him, “But mostly I just exist. Things happen around me. I know how to survive, but that’s not much good to anyone else.”

She knew that should have made her sad, and it did, but not as much as she thought it should have. What would be the point? In the long run? Some days she was so tired she didn’t feel like there was much person left at all. _I still feel like a pilot light,_ thought Laurie, watching the campfire flicker, _Even though I’m trying. I thought things were supposed to get better when you did that._

“Well, you’re always nice to me,” said Quentin.

She looked back over at him and he smiled, trying to get her to smile back. _No I’m not,_ thought Laurie sadly, but he looked so hopeful that it worked anyway and she smiled back after a second, still feeling guilty.

“Are you doing okay?” asked Quentin, watching her, “For real? It’s been a lot more than two weeks, and I’m glad, and super relieved. But are you okay?”

“Not really,” said Laurie with a quiet laugh, “But what else is new?”

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Quentin, “I mean, I’ve already thoroughly embarrassed myself today. You could even the score a little out of pity.”

“I don’t really like talking about stuff,” replied Laurie, internally emotionally closing and locking all her doors.

“You too?” asked Quentin, nudging her with his knee.

“It’s not the same,” she protested.

“I know, I know,” Quentin apologized, backing off, “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’m just glad you’re still here.”

“Me too, I think,” said Laurie quietly after a little pause, tilting her head up to watch the trees bending above her in the wind, scattering leaves. _Cold, but not really. It’s all fake, but at least it feels a little like wind._

“Yeah?” asked Quentin, looking a little better. He shifted, relaxing a little and stretching out one leg and leaning against the other knee, following her gaze and watching the trees with her.

“I think so,” replied Laurie, wondering about it herself. She’d stayed originally because she’d promised, and then because she’d cared enough about the others to want to help. She wondered quietly if that was still the reason, or if it was something of her own. She’d really wanted to die. No—no, she hadn’t. She’d really wanted to stop being alive. And she still did, in a lot of ways. Dying hurt, and seeing her brother hurt her in multiple ways, and watching her friends die hurt, being stuck hurt. But there was progress, there was Philip, and the Huntress sort of now; there were friends.

More than that though even, she’d found herself from time to time thinking about things absently. She hadn’t done that in years. But now she was again. Even in trials, sometimes she would let her mind wander while her fingers were busy on a generator, and she'd think of something so completely random and unimportant, like how Meg managed to store so much information in her head that she could pepper every conversation with “Four for you Glen Coco”s and “Communism was just a red herring”s so seamlessly, or what songs Quentin tried to describe would really sound like if she heard them, or if the oceans and villages and packed cities so far away from the only state she’d really ever known that Ace and Adam talked about together could really as incredible as they made them sound.

And that wasn’t all—sometimes she would just wonder about something that was absolutely stupid, like if there were any way Doc Ock might have survived the end of Spider-Man 2 somehow, because she’d sort of been sad about it when Meg had finished that one. How idiotic was that? She hadn’t even _really_ seen either of those movies, and yet here she was. Spending time thinking about it. In the midst of this hell. But just the same, somehow things like that had started to matter again, the smallest bit. Sometimes a passing thought would hit her up on a hook about how much she wished she weren’t alive anymore, and how tired she was of it all, but then she would think, _Yes, but Meg’s been talking up her next movie so much, and Jake’s helped put so much work into choreographing dance numbers, and even Claudette’s doing it, and they’re all so excited about practicing and rehearsing lines and how everything is going to look when it’s finished, so I want to stop being alive after she does Dirty Dancing._

Laurie wondered if that counted as being glad to still be here. She wasn’t sorry she’d lived as long as she had, but was that the same as being glad she was alive?

“You and the Shape.”

Quentin’s voice brought her out of her thoughts and she turned to look at him.

“Back when…” He glanced over at her and stopped “Never mind,” he said, shaking something off, “Just. You’re really okay? And you don’t need anyone to talk to?”

 _I don’t know,_ thought Laurie, _There’s so much I try not to think about and I’m pretty good at it by now. I wonder if I would know if I needed to talk to someone?_ “I don’t think it would help,” said Laurie after a second.

“Do you know why he’s after you?” asked Quentin, watching her.

“I’m the one that got away,” shrugged Laurie, “Unfinished business, I guess.”

“But originally,” he clarified.

“No,” said Laurie, feeling far away, thinking back to that night and the long day before it, and a trip to a mental ward many, many years ago, “I don’t.”

Quentin was quiet for a second. “Can he talk?”

“Can he—” Laurie blinked, suddenly realizing she had no idea. She had never _heard_ him talk. Even before. And trying to think back on it, none of her memories of him from when she was little involved him talking either. Not that that was proof—she had something like…seven memories at most, period. But. “I don’t know,” she said, surprised, “He doesn’t. I don’t know if he can’t or just won’t. He never ran, either,” she added thoughtfully.

“Not even before being here?” asked Quentin, surprised, “Is it just because he doesn’t need to?”

“No, it slows him down,” said Laurie, “I always just sort of thought maybe his leg muscles atrophied from not being used.”

“Why would that happen?” asked Quentin, leaning over, engrossed.

“Oh—uh,” said Laurie, not really having meant to bring that up, “He was in a mental institution before he started killing people. For a long time.”

“And that would make his—oooh, it was the 1970s, right,” said Quentin, answering his own question.

“Maybe it’s just because he’s so tall he walks fast enough anyway,” said Laurie, shrugging.

“Did you know him before?” asked Quentin, “I mean—Since you know his name, and his history, I thought…”

“Sort of,” said Laurie honestly, “I knew of him.”

“Not well, though?” said Quentin.

“No, I knew him when we were both really young,” replied Laurie quietly, “He was gone for fifteen years in an institution; I barely even have memories of before. I was only two.”

Quentin looked a lot more shocked and troubled by that than she had expected, and it surprised her.

“What?” said Laurie.

“No, it’s just. Sad,” said Quentin, “How old was he?”

“Six,” she replied.

“Wait, he’s our age?” asked Quentin in disbelief, “Shit.”

“Yeah, the mask and the like, six and a half feet tall thing doesn’t do him any favors there,” said Laurie, smiling to herself.

“So, you were friends as kids, and then he got locked away in an institution for fifteen years, and then he came back out and tried to kill you?” asked Quentin, trying to sum up what he knew.

“That’s about it,” agreed Laurie. “I mean, I was two, so I’m not sure if ‘friends’ is applicable, but. More or less.” _Why am I telling you this?_ She wasn’t sure. Maybe it was that the way he asked her was so conversational. It didn’t make her feel under pressure, or obligation, or like she was being interrogated. Maybe it was because his life was probably even more fucked up than hers, and so he might at least not judge, even if he wouldn’t understand.

“Well, it can’t be because he’s mad at you. You were two. I can’t think of anything a two-year-old could do to a six-year-old to make them want revenge for fifteen years,” said Quentin.

“That’s what I thought,” said Laurie, shrugging, “But here we are.”

“Why was he institutionalized?” asked Quentin, looking like he was trying to puzzle something out.

“He, uh,” said Laurie, hesitating. She wasn’t sure if this was something she wanted to tell him. _Only the loose facts._ “He killed someone.”

“At age six?” asked Quentin, looking horrified.

“Yeah,” said Laurie, “He did.”

“So, he killed someone at age six, got locked up for _fifteen_ years, was released—escaped?” he asked, changing his guess.

“Broke out,” confirmed Laurie.

“And came to kill you,” finished Quentin.

Laurie nodded.

“That’s…I’m so sorry,” said Quentin quietly, “Did they know why he killed someone when he was little?”

“Probably,” said Laurie, “But I didn’t know. Just that everyone was scared of him, and said he was crazy. Or evil. Or both.”

“So, he was alone in there? From age six on?” asked Quentin. Laurie nodded, thinking about that herself. “Fifteen years,” said Quentin quietly. He realized suddenly that he’d sounded like he felt bad for him and looked over at Laurie apologetically.

“—It’s okay,” said Laurie, raising a hand and cutting him off before he could speak. She meant it, too. It was a sentiment she understood. “Whatever kind of monster he is now, he probably didn’t deserve that when he was a kid,” she continued, feeling a little sad, “I think as a six-year-old it would be hard to. But I can’t change that. Not any of it.”

Quentin nodded. “Still. It isn’t fair. Especially to you.”

“I mean, you can talk,” said Laurie, “Not even killing yours seems to work.” She instantly regretted it.

“Yeah,” said Quentin, sighing, but not seeming to take it as badly as she’d feared, “Probably the only good thing that big monster up in the sky has ever done is trap him in here away from everyone back home. Meg and I have some ideas though, and damned if I’m not going to try them out. He might kill me, but I’m not gonna make it easy.”

“You have plans?” asked Laurie, hoping.

“Sort of,” answered Quentin, “Back before all this, when he was coming to kill me, I did a shit-ton of research on everything about dreams, and controlling them, and astral projecting, and all sorts of stuff. I practiced in dreams back then too, and I definitely haven’t been doing that, so that isn’t great, but on the plus side, I’ve had a couple years to think up things to try. So. Who knows.”

The comment sobered him when he finished it, and he was quiet for a second, lost in thought as around them the breeze rustled leaves and shadows flickered.

 “We should talk about something else,” said Laurie, concerned.

“Like what?” said Quentin, breaking his reverie and glancing over at her.

“I don’t know,” said Laurie, “Anything. Something that isn’t so big. Or hard. I still don’t really know you that well,” she added, “And I’d like to.”

“Okay,” said Quentin, shifting to face her a little more, “What do you want to know?”

“What’s it okay to ask?” asked Laurie.

“At this point?” said Quentin, propping his chin up on his palm and watching her with a smile on his face, “Basically anything, I guess.”

“Okay,” said Laurie, aiming low, “What’s your favorite color?”

The smile vanished and Quentin stared at her, for some reason suddenly looking shaken, and then worse than that. Scared. Like someone stuck in place watching a train bearing down on them seconds before it hit.

“Did I say something wrong?” asked Laurie, worried and lost.

“No,” said Quentin, still with a chilled expression on his face like he’d just seen his own grave, “No, you’re fine,” he added, trying to shake it off. “Just something from a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry,” said Laurie, no idea what she’d done wrong.

“No, it’s me—you didn’t do anything,” said Quentin, recovering a little. “Blue,” he added after a second, looking a little far away, “My favorite color is blue.”

“You know,” said Laurie after a second of worried silence, not sure what had gone wrong, but trying hard to change the subject to something better. “You told me you have a dad, but you’ve never really told me about him. About your family.”

“Well, neither have you,” said Quentin, glancing over at her.

 _That’s what you think,_ thought Laurie. “I’d like to hear.”

“Okay,” said Quentin, looking a little more present, “Well, my only family is my dad. Mom died when I was still pretty little. His name is Alan. I don’t really know what to say about him, though,” he added awkwardly, glancing over at her.

She gave him a reassuring smile.

“He’s, uh, kind of strict,” offered Quentin, “but he’s also fun and sometimes stupid, in the way dads are. He thinks he’s really good at chess and checkers, but he’s not very good at either of them. And you wouldn’t think it, because he doesn’t seem like the type for sitcoms, but he has all of _The Fresh Prince of Bel Air_ on dvd and he made me watch it with him.”

“What else,” said Laurie encouragingly, leaning forward and listening intently, chin in her hands.

“What else,” repeated Quentin, thinking, “Okay, well, he likes a lot of old movies, especially _The Count of Monte Cristo,_ and _Some Like it Hot,_ which I recognize are very, very different movies,” he added, grinning when he noticed the look on her face, because both of those movies were old enough that she’d seen them.

“I’m sorry,” said Laurie, trying not to laugh, “Can I have a second to adjust to that?”

“Sure,” said Quentin, waiting a second for her to get that mental image squared away before he kept going. “You good?” he asked, still grinning.

She nodded, biting her lower lip because she had been until he’d asked, but it was suddenly very hard not to laugh again. “Please,” she said, managing to keep it under control and motioning with a hand, “Continue.”

“Alright. Less surprisingly, I got some of my music taste from him. Which is mostly rock,” said Quentin, “Of all kinds—Hard Rock, Progressive, Punk, Classic. Which is nice, because we don’t fight over music in the car. Uhm…He cooks really well, and subsequently so do I, because he decided he thought it was a fun and useful skill to have after he got it. He likes cats more than dogs, but pretends it’s the other way around. And sometimes he gets really sad at random things, like songs that remind him of mom, and he drinks too much—not like he gets angry,” Quentin hurried to add, “I’ve just been afraid a few times he’d get alcohol poisoning. He always tries to hide it, but sometimes I see anyway.” He paused, looking happy and a sad at the same time as he spoke.

Laurie was a little worried for a second that she’d messed up again and picked a topic quite literally too close to home, but as he kept going he seemed okay, like talking about his dad was making him happier than the damage it dealt hurt.

“He didn’t really understand me a lot of the time, but he loved me,” continued Quentin, a little more quietly, “So it was good enough. He killed a guy for me as part of a civilian vigilante mob, and that was pretty cool. I even got to see it. Sort of.”

“He does sound cool,” agreed Laurie, “He killed the Nightmare?”

“He did,” said Quentin, looking proud.

“That is a feat,” said Laurie, imagining. She would have liked to do that herself.

“How about your family?” asked Quentin.

“I don’t want to talk about mine,” said Laurie quietly, “They’re all dead.” She had been able to tell that Quentin was going to protest before she said that, but as soon as she did he relented.

“Okay, well, then…if we got out of here today, what would you do?” asked Quentin, watching her with interest.

_God. I don’t know. Drink a whole bottle of wine and go to sleep for two straight weeks? But that isn’t what he means. He means if we were free, and I was going to have a life again. If I wanted to live for something besides just postponing the end until after something I sort of wanted to be there for happened. A real life._

“Travel,” said Laurie after a second of thought, remembering again the stories Adam and Ace had told, and long before that globes and maps and images on the television and in books, “I think. I don’t really have a life to go back to, and I wasn’t old enough to have plans, or dreams. Not real ones, anyway. I know it’s been a long time, but I still don’t. So I’m not sure. But I think maybe it would be nice to go places, see things. Just be out in the world, and free.” She imagined that, and it felt nice. There wasn’t a purpose to it, but it would be peaceful, and pretty, and different. Everything could be new. No more cycles.  

“Where would you go?” asked Quentin, smiling as he watched her.

“I don’t know,” said Laurie, “Everywhere, maybe. Although, I don’t have any money,” she added a little more realistically, the kind of vague dream-like happiness she’d almost felt for a moment fading, “So traveling probably isn’t really that possible.”

“If that’s what you still want when we get out,” said Quentin in absolute sincerity, “I’ll bankroll you. I don’t have money either, so it might take a while, but I think I’m going to be a doctor. All I want is to go home, so if I make it, I’d be happy to just give you the money.”

Laurie laughed, “I’m not going to take all your money.”

“Why not?” said Quentin, “If it would make you happy. And you could always stay with us too,” he offered, looking happier than she’d seen him look all day, “My dad and me. Between trips. He’d like you. Besides, all of us in here are basically family.” He met her gaze and suddenly looked embarrassed then and flushed, backpedaling a little, “Obviously you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but the offer’ll stay open. If you do.”

 _That’s sweet,_ thought Laurie, feeling warm inside. _Wow. It’s been a long time. What the hell emotion am I feeling? Comfort? No..._ She didn’t know. It had been too long for her to really recognize something like affection anymore. _I used to know this._

“Thanks,” she replied, smiling at him. Laurie didn’t really think she would ever have a home again, or her own thing to live for, but it was nice to have people who cared about that. Who wanted it for her. It was almost like family, and it made her feel a little less empty. _You’re good at that,_ thought Laurie, looking over at Quentin. It was funny, he always looked so exhausted and worn out, and he acted so much more responsible than half the group that sometimes she forgot how young he was. But he was still very young, and under the exhaustion she could see it. _I wonder if you’re the youngest one here? That must be so rough,_ thought Laurie, _And you’re still trying to take care of me. Wow, I would make a terrible older sibling. Not as bad as my own older sibling, obviously, so maybe good by my family standards. But not great._

Tired out from feeling too many things for too long, Laurie flopped down onto her back in the grass and looked up at the night sky. Quentin lay down beside her, tucking one arm underneath his head like a pillow.

“It’s funny, isn’t it,” said Laurie, watching the sky, “If it wasn’t a prison, sometimes this place could be almost pretty.”

“It always makes the moon way too large, though,” said Quentin, pointing at it.

“That’s not the only thing it does wrong,” said Laurie, “I don’t think the Entity really understands what most things are. The cars are like blocks shaped like cars. Like a really good theater set.”

“It definitely doesn’t know what water is,” said Quentin, “No matter how much I get rained on in the Red Forest, I never actually stay wet.”

Laurie laughed. “It doesn’t get houses either. My favorite places in Haddonfield are those stupid rooms with an occasional pathetic floor mattresses. It’s like suddenly halfway through the design phase the Entity remembered that humans have things they sleep on and made a last second minimum effort to include that.”

“Or all the rooms that are all thin and tiny and could never actually be a real room?” said Quentin.

“Yeah, you mean the ones it loves to put one generator in so it’s easy for you to get trapped?” asked Laurie, “It’s my second-favorite part of trial décor, after things that make a lot of creepy noise so it’s hard to hear killers coming, like the tv screens in the institute or that fucking empty water tower.”

“Those are bad,” said Quentin, “But for me the most distracting is the soda machines.  I’ve been tempted to break them open so many times just in case they had anything with caffeine in there, but I just know that if I do they’re going to turn out to be set decoration.”

“You too?” asked Laurie in surprise, “They’re so much more detailed than a lot of the things it makes, I always wonder if maybe there’s really soda in the vending machines myself.”

“Really?” said Quentin, “Well, I guess we could always try sometime. At least then we’d know.”

“Let’s ask Philip to find out for us,” said Laurie, “He’d probably be more successful anyway. And he won’t get killed.”

“I still can’t believe we actually got him,” said Quentin, turning his head to look back up at the sky, “I mean. It’s surreal. Something like that happening here.”

“It really is,” agreed Laurie, her mind drifting back to older memories. The Philip before the one they knew now, the scars all over his body, old and new, and the things the new Philip had said to her in the hatch tunnel. Mind lingering on injuries, she glanced over at Quentin. “How bad are the cuts on your back? It seems like they’re still giving you trouble.”

“They aren’t that bad,” he replied, “But they’re hard to reach. I probably didn’t do the best job suturing.”

“Let me take a look at them,” said Laurie, sitting up.

“It’s not a big deal,” protested Quentin, glancing over, “I’m okay.”

“You’ll sneak better if you quit bleeding,” countered Laurie, “And run faster. Plus, it’s got to hurt.”

Quentin sighed and sat up himself. “Okay.”

Laurie moved over behind him, and Quentin pulled his shirt up so she could see his back. There was a length of gauze wound around him, covering the wounds, but she wouldn’t have had to undo it to know what the wound was. There were four long, thin pink lines bleeding through in a pattern everyone here knew well. Laurie found the knot in the gauze and started to undo it so she could see could get to the wounds underneath. It only took a second. The cuts were long and thin, not deep, but a little inflamed. So long they almost went from hip to hip. He’d done an okay job of trying to suture them shut for someone in that position, but it was jagged and rough, and looked painful.

“Is it bad?” asked Quentin, seeing her grimace.

“No,” said Laurie, “But it looks like it hurts.”

“It does,” answered Quentin.

“You know,” said Laurie after a second, “Claudette has a secret stash of alcohol, and if you tell her how shitty you’re feeling, she’ll give it to you.”

Quentin laughed so hard it made him cough. “Why does she have that? And how do you know?” he asked.

“I’ve been abusing it,” said Laurie, unashamed, “Okay, hang on. I’m going to grab a medkit from the fire. I’ll be right back.”

“Sure,” said Quentin, letting his shirt back down over the unbandaged cuts.

Laurie turned and hurried towards the campfire. After she’d gone a few steps, she heard Quentin call after her.

“Hey, Laurie.”

She stopped and turned.

“Thank you,” he said, still looking tired and sad like he always did, but a lot better than when she’d first spoken to him, “Really.”

She smiled back and turned towards the fire.

The campfire was sparse. Several people were still gone from the earlier trial—Feng, Claudette, Jake, and Dwight—and Laurie went to her little storage area inside one of the hollow logs on the far side of the fire without anyone stopping her to talk. As she reached it and grabbed a medkit, she heard David behind her say “Shite. One ah those days. Others still aren’t back, but here we go, ah s’pose.”

She turned around and saw David looking at a vanishing arm.

“See y’all in there,” said Kate, one arm already half gone and snagging a toolbox with the other. Laurie looked down at herself. Nothing. Around her, everyone else was checking too, but no one was going. _Shit,_ thought Laurie, looking back towards where Quentin was, knowing she wouldn’t be able to see him and not sure why she was suddenly so scared.

 

* * *

 

 

At the edge of the woods, Quentin looked down at vanishing shoes and stood up with a tired sigh. “I really shouldn’t have unbandaged that,” he muttered to himself, glancing towards the fire and the people he could just barely make out around it, “Sorry Laurie.”

He was gone then, reappearing in a building he knew well. White halls, blood spatter, corpses, closed doors. The Meat Packing Plant. _Okay, with any luck, it won’t be Krueger or the Huntress,_ thought Quentin, moving carefully through a doorway, staying low to the ground and listening hard for any signs of life, trying to ignore the pain in his back that was slightly worse than usual. _God, please, if it’s one of them, let it be the Huntress. I might die but I think I could be okay with that death._

He slipped down a hall and into a second area and found himself in a little row of walls, near a generator, and moved past them and started to work on it. He’d only been on it for a few seconds when he heard the heartbeat of something getting closer. _No singing, that’s good—it’s neither of them, and probably not the Pig either,_ he thought hopefully, slipping out of the room and to cover behind one of the walls with a low sill nearby so he could see while remaining hidden, watching the hallways on the left and right from his position of relative cover. Past the walls and to the left, in the distance, he saw a pinkish cloud explode around the corner, spraying chemicals through the air.

 _Oh, the Clown,_ thought Quentin with immense relief, _That shouldn’t be so bad._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's very interesting that the two survivors whose baggage came with them to the Entity's realm--Laurie and Quentin--have in some ways such similar experiences, and in other ways such completely separate ones. If you look at it from a certain aspect, Quentin's running something like psychological horror, and Laurie's bringing a Greek tragedy. They both lost basically everything to the person trying to kill them. The motivations are very different, though. Michael Myers displayed psychosis symptoms and told his parents he heard voices in his head telling him to do bad things, but they didn't get him treatment, and to quiet the voices when he couldn't take it any more, he killed his sister at six years old. Instead of helping him, his parents left him in Smith's Grove after under almost the solo care of Doctor Loomis, who decided Michael was the human personification of evil, and had to be stopped, which he told this young child under his care repeatedly, at least from age eight on, consistently ignoring psychological symptoms such as catatonia in favor of his assumptions that they were an act. Michael's mother snuck out to see him, but very few times, and only during his first two years away. His father hated him so much that when Laurie, four at the time, mentioned her brother in front of him, he beat her until she wouldn't talk about him again (which largely explains her temporary memory loss of having had a family before the Strodes). After fifteen years of being told he wasn't human and referred to as 'it' by his psychologist, with voices that still wouldn't stop in his head, Michael broke out at age 21 and went to reenact his previous sister's death and get his second one. Murder is murder, but all in all, it very much reads like a tragedy. Quentin, on the other hand, was in preschool when he and the whole rest of his class were taken advantage of and sexually abused by the gardener there, Freddy Krueger, who slowly built trust before taking the four-year-olds into a secret room. After being burned to death by a civilian vigilante mob of parents who found out, the Nightmare came back about twelve years later and, instead of going after the people who'd killed him, enacted revenge on the helpless children he'd hurt who had told their parents the truth about him--slowly hunting, torturing, and killing them until there were only two out of the entire class left alive. Quentin and Nancy. Even after working together and throwing everything they had at him--killing him a second time--he came back, and killed Nancy's mom, before slowly stalking Quentin in dreams for weeks, ready to pick up where he left off.
> 
> It's grim. They're both very grim stories. Even in the more real-world sense, where dream demons aren't a thing and people tend to die after being shot five times, there are versions of these kinds of things that a lot of people have to live with. And that's brave, but it's also hard, and the outcome is almost never fair. 
> 
> Thank you again to everyone who reads! There's a lot more character focus than action in this one, but there will be plenty of the latter very soon. I really hope you all enjoy this chapter, and the rest to come!


	39. The End of the Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate, David, and Jeff have the worst night of their lives. Quentin's past catches up with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter specific content warnings for sadistic, graphic torture, and Elm Street cannon-typical implied sexual violence.

 

As the pink cloud faded in the distance, Quentin waited a few seconds to make sure the Clown wasn’t coming his way, then went back to his generator. _I wonder who he’s chasing,_ he thought with a little worry. Everyone had been so far away when he’d disappeared, he had no idea. _One of the girls,_ he realized, hearing a scream from down the hallway, _Kate—maybe Meg?_

Doing trials had been so fucking hard to get used to. It was instinctive to go run and help someone when you heard them scream—try and help them escape, or fight, or draw danger away; but that just wasn’t effective. They were going to get hurt. Everyone was going to get hurt. Usually, at least one of them was going to die, sometimes all of them, and it was rare to make it through a trial without being chopped up or hooked at least once. That didn’t mean Quentin was ever ready to accept it—he would try to keep everyone alive as long as humanly possible, but Dwight was right that people needed to be working on generators while their friends were getting chased. If they weren’t—if they all ran off to try and help every time someone was in trouble, then the gates wouldn’t open in time, and they’d all end up dead.

But Quentin hated that.

He hadn’t heard a second scream, but he did then, and he shuddered in spite of himself. _Fuck, fuck, fuck._ That probably meant she was down, right? And he was going to hook her in the basement. They were both pretty close to it, and the scream had come from even closer to the place than Quentin was.

_Just keep working until she’s hooked, and then go help her. You’re so close to done on this thing—sixty percent. She’s—_

There was another scream, and Quentin stopped, almost backfiring the gen. _What? That’s—that’s still Kate, right? Was she not down?_ And then another scream, this one kind of choked sounding and muffled—but longer. Still Kate’s voice. He instinctively swung his head around to look, even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to see anything past the walls between them. _What the fuck?_

Something was wrong. This wasn’t normal. But that didn’t make sense, because the Clown was always normal. He was probably the most by-the-book killer here. That didn’t mean he was the most enjoyable—he was a fucking asshole who really enjoyed hurting people, but it was routine. Sure, he was one of the more likely ones to spend some time carving you up once you were on a hook, but as fucked up as that was, there was never anything completely unexpected. No one was like the Nightmare when it came to breaking the rules, but if anyone had come close it would have been the Doctor or the Pig. Certainly not the Clown.

For a second he hung there, frozen, listening, and then Quentin heard another sound. This one wasn’t a scream. It was quieter—almost a sob. But too loud for that. Still choked and distorted. _What the fuck?_ he thought, a chill running down his spine. His hands still hung where they’d been, hovering above the nearly finished generator he’d forgotten about. _What is he doing to her?_

He heard Kate’s voice again then—her for sure this time, and she wasn’t just screaming, she was talking. Her voice was muffled for some reason, and Quentin couldn’t make out many of the words through that and over the distance and the sound of his almost fully functioning generator churning away, but there were fragments. “No,” and “Stop.” _Did she say ‘Let me go?’_ thought Quentin, staring in growing horror at the walls between him and the sounds. _Why would she say that? She knows he won’t. What’s going on? Something—something really unusual has to be going on for her to say that, right?_

There was a sick, bottoming-out feeling in the pit of his stomach and he stood up. It was familiar, in a way only trials with the Nightmare had ever been familiar. Quentin forgot the generator completely and took off towards the sound of Kate’s voice. She was in trouble. Bad trouble, and he had to go.

As he ran, the sounds stopped coming and Kate’s voice disappeared, but the noise had been coming from the bathroom. He had been afraid so, but he hadn’t been sure until he’d gotten close, and he’d been able to feel the terror aura wash over him. The bathroom here was always about the worst spot to work on a generator. There was always one in there, but the room only had one way out. If someone bigger than you got in the doorway, you were pretty much fucked, and the thing was only like thirty feet from the basement.

 _They probably went from the bathroom to the basement, right?_ thought Quentin, inching close. It was hard to tell, only that he was almost right on top of them. Then he heard Kate. A muffled sound like a whimper, and it was coming from the bathroom. _Still_ coming from the bathroom.

 _What? Why?_ thought Quentin, nervously crouched by the edge of a wall, trying to think this through, _There’s no hook in there—what the fuck is going on?_

The terror aura subsided then, and Quentin was left with nothing but his own pounding heartbeat, and faint sounds coming from Kate in the next room.

 _He can’t have left,_ thought Quentin, _I didn’t see him—unless he’d already left when I started over? If I go in there and he’s waiting, I’ll screw us both. But I can’t just leave her. I—shit, okay, okay, I have to be careful. Take it slow._

Warily, ears straining for any sound, he stole towards the door and looked in, carefully scanning for any sign of Kate and the Clown inside. The Clown was nowhere to be seen, but Kate was there, and Quentin froze up for a second, a chill running down him at something that was all too familiar. Kate hung from the front of the generator, eyes closed, arms bound behind her to the metal frame. Her chest and shirt had a long slit down the front, and there was a deep cut in one of her shoulders. A bruise was forming along her cheekbone, and there was an array of matching marks at her throat.

 _I don’t understand,_ Quentin thought, feeling sick and feverously looking around one more time to make sure he hadn’t somehow missed the giant bastard who’d done this. As soon as he was sure, Quentin ran to her, sliding to a stop on his knees and going for the rope first, fingers tripping over themselves as he struggled to undo the knot.

“Kate. Kate,” he said quietly, praying she would answer him.

She didn’t, but he could tell she was breathing, and as he struggled with the ropes she groaned faintly.

 _Did he knock you out?_ wondered Quentin, tearing the knot free and catching Kate as she fell forward into his arms.

“Okay, okay,” he said softly, voice barely audible, “You’re gonna be okay—I’m gonna get you out of here.” He didn’t know why he’d said it. There was no way she could hear him, and he had no idea where he was going to take her to try to keep her safe until she could wake up, but he’d felt like he should say it for some reason anyway, hoping it was true as he slung her arm over his shoulder and started for the door.

As he turned, a terror aura flickered to life around him and a hulking shape moved in front of the doorway and his gaze was suddenly met by the massive form of the Clown. It smiled at him.

 _How the **fuck** did I not hear him when he got close, _thought Quentin in a panic, turning at an angle so he was between the thing and Kate’s unconscious body as he backed up further into the room, heart thudding. _Shit, shit, shit—what do I do?_

“Kate—Kate wake up!” shouted Quentin, shaking her as he went further into the corner of the room, trying to think of something—anything he could do.

The Clown didn’t try to stop him—didn’t move at all, just stood there grinning at him in the doorway.

Quentin’s back hit the bathtub and he glanced behind himself for a half second and saw what looked like a carpet bag sitting inside on top of the corpse that was always in there. _What the fuck?_ Beside him, Kate groaned quietly, and he redoubled his efforts to wake her, praying against all hope that it would work. “Kate!” shouted Quentin again, shaking her harder, frantic.

The Clown moved then, shuffling towards him slowly, and Quentin let go of Kate and moved in front of her.

_Shit—shit! What do I do? I can’t wake her up; I can’t just leave her—I could try to run and come back, or do I—do I stall him and hope she wakes up? What the fuck is he doing? This doesn’t make sense!_

Watching him with a deeply unsettling look on its face, the Clown removed a flask from its coat and tilted it, considering, then suddenly smashed it on the floor in front of them.

Quentin coughed as the pink dust cloud spread over him, blurring his vision and making him feel sick and weak, and he knew the Clown would come for him then, and it did. Anticipating the lunge, Quentin ducked out of the way and ran past. He’d almost made the door when something caught him by the back of his shirt and jerked him backwards.

The Clown slammed him against the tile wall and pinned him there with a forearm as he struggled, and then it reached for his face and there was a rag in its hand.

_What?_

“No!” Quentin screamed, suddenly realizing what that was, “No, you can’t!” he tried, but the sound was muffled as the Clown forced the cloth over his mouth and nose and held it there.

 _Fuck! Fuck—don’t breathe!_ Quentin told himself, struggling and kicking and fighting against the arm pinning him in place with everything he had, _Fuck—no—no you can’t breathe! If you breathe, you’re going to pass out, and if you pass out, you’re dead!_

He was terrified, and it fueled him—an incredible surge of adrenaline pumping through his veins, fighting for his life. The thing opposite him was so big though, and so strong, and it wasn’t letting go. He bit at its hand and pounded his fists against its arm and tried to scratch its face, feet flailing for something—anything that might make it stop, but it was unmoved, unrelenting, and his lungs were burning as the seconds dragged on from thirty to sixty to ninety. Two generators lit up in the distance, but the Clown didn’t even look. The tension in his chest was painful and it was getting harder and harder for Quentin to fight against his own body as it tried to force him to breathe. There was no way to keep this up forever.

 _Please, God,_ begged Quentin, feeling faint from the loss of oxygen, _Please, any way but this._

Feeling him lose strength, the Clown let go with the arm pinning Quentin against the wall for just a fraction of a second and slammed its elbow into his chest, knocking any remaining breath he could have had out of him and forcing him to involuntarily take a gasp of air. The rag over his face smelled sweet, and Quentin immediately felt dizzy, and weak, and foggy.

 _No,_ he thought, fighting not to take another breathe, _No, not like this. God, please._

The Clown held him in place, too weak to fight back now, just a waiting game to see if he would give in and breathe the rag or pass out from asphyxiation first. When that happened, his body would go back to breathing on its own, and he was fucked.

 _I’m dead,_ realized Quentin as he started to lose consciousness, _It doesn’t matter. I’m dead either way. Nobody is going to save me this time._

Terror seeped its way deep into his bones as everything he’d been struggling against for so long became real, and Quentin blacked out.

 

* * *

 

 _This is some wildly good luck,_ thought Jeff, slipping past some barrels in search of another generator. Two generators done, and no one up on a hook? He hadn’t even had to run and hide yet—he hadn’t seen or heard a thing from the killer.

Jeff had never been in this place before. Some kind of abandoned storage building? He had passed several stairways leading down, but stairs leading down were usually bad news in this hellscape; and upstairs had been kind to him so far, so Jeff was staying put. He stole through an open doorway and found himself in a place like nothing he’d ever seen before. Tables with sheets upon sheets of plans strewn about them amongst chunks of decapitated mannequins. _A workshop?_

But if this was a workshop, what the hell kind of work had gone on in here? Staticed tv screens, lamps, canisters, a couple crates. It wasn’t like this was the worst thing he’d seen in the building—there had been dead hogs up on hooks where he’d started. But still, there was something bad about the way the room felt.

To his left, Jeff noticed some shelves with a couple of…masks? They looked like pig heads, and for a second that’s what he thought they really were—the heads from some decapitated pigs, especially since in the few minutes he’d been here dead pigs had already started to sort of seem like a theme. One of them had hair though, and as he got closer, Jeff realized they were plastic.

 _Fuckin’ weird. And creepy as hell,_ he observed, moving on. Just past him, to his right, there was a little alcove with a bed in it. That was surprising in its own way, since Jeff wouldn’t have expected this creepy workshop to be someone’s bedroom, but what was really surprising was the blueprint tacked up on the wall behind it.

 _What the hell?_ thought Jeff, leaning in to take a closer look. Something big and metal encased the lower half of a head in the drawing, and as he studied the print Jeff realized there were prongs in the mouth and a spring activation, and as he put the engineering mechanics he knew together with what he saw, Jeff drew back, horrified. Beside it was a smaller blueprint, detailing some kind of collar or harness, and Jeff’s eyes scanned it and picked up ‘Shotgun Collar’ in small scrawl by one of the illustrations. He looked again at the ridges lining the neck harness and felt sickened.

 _This is a real bad place._ His mind was stating the obvious, but just the same, Jeff was very careful backing away. Further in on his right there were some lockers and then a square of floor missing, leaving a drop-down into some area of the building below, which Jeff was still not feeling very enthusiastic about exploring. A little past that was a small raised area, and Jeff thought he saw the outline of a chest through the broken windows and crept up the stairs into the room. There was a chest, but Jeff instantly forgot it when he saw the array of monitors.

 _I was there,_ thought Jeff, horrified, watching the room he’d been in with the big circular shaft leading underground and the dead hogs up on the screen. And then, front and center, he saw movement and squinted. One of the screens was showing what looked like a bathroom, and inside it, Jeff hadn’t noticed anyone at all at first through the grainy video quality, but as he focused he saw it again. He’d thought there was a just a generator, but something moved in front of it, and as Jeff looked, wishing his vision had never taken a hit, he realized that the person there wasn’t working on the generator. It was a girl, and she was tied to it.

Jeff moved back from the screen on instinct, immediately nervous at the sight. _That’s—they don’t do that, do they? Tie us up?_

But he’d been wrong before. Like. A lot of times. He’d seen one of the things straight up eat someone in a match and vomited at the sight, and that had only been something like two days ago.

Unsure, Jeff leaned closer to the screen again, and he noticed that he’d been wrong. It wasn’t one person—it was three? Between two toilets was body, but as Jeff looked, he realized it had to have been there a long time—almost mummified—even through the bad quality on the tv. But past it, in the corner of the room by the bathtub, someone smaller than him was laying on the ground, unmoving. Unmoving but fresh—modern clothes, human skin, undecayed. Maybe alive. Maybe.

 _Okay. Okay, hell, what am I supposed to do?_ thought Jeff, _I should go untie her, right? This is weird, though. It feels kind of like a trap. Why aren’t they hooked? Isn’t that always the monster’s goal? To—to get us killed by the big spider-god thing? But I can’t just leave her. Or the other one, if they’re alive too. But if the killer is hanging out there waiting, that means he’s not patrolling, right? Which means I and whoever else is out here could finish all the generators, and then run a rescue mission—right? Wouldn’t that be smarter?_

It was, but he still felt kind of shitty about it.

 _I mean,_ he thought, glancing towards the monitor, _She’ll be okay, right?_

There was suddenly the overwhelming presence of a heartbeat, and Jeff froze, moving only his head to try and see where whatever it was was. It had to be close to sound like that, didn’t it? In the room somewhere.

But as he looked, there was nothing. Not a hint of movement, even though he could hear the heartbeat getting louder and louder.

 _Oh my god is one of them invisible?_ wondered Jeff with a looming sense of dread. Movement on the monitor caught his eye then, and he turned back to it to see there was a third person in the room.

_Oh God._

It was a man Jeff had never seen before. Huge. Tall, and wide, and dressed like a clown. Jeff hadn’t ever been one to be afraid of clowns or to understand the common theme in horror, but for the first time in his life, he got it.

“Hol-ly shit,” he whispered, staring at the man on the screen. _But he sounds like he’s right on top of me. How is that?_

Two levels. It clicked suddenly. That had to be below him—this place must be right on top of the bathroom.

Watching the monitor in rapt horror, Jeff saw the huge man stoop next to the girl. She didn’t seem to be very aware of what was going on, or maybe just weak. She was awake and moving, but her head tilted up slowly, and Jeff recognized something off about the motion from many, many long nights following bands on tour as a roadie. Her chest had a long gash carved into it and her shirt hung in shreds off her shoulders, and as Jeff watched, the Clown ran his knife through the last few inches of it, slicing it in half and leaving her with it hanging there like a vest, in just her bra as he leaned over her.

_Nope. Fuck. I’m going right now._

Jeff turned and lept the windowsill next to him, trying to remember where the dropdown into the floor below had been. He had no plan at all, and no weapon, but that didn’t really matter right now. The hole in the floor was close, only about five feet off, and Jeff ran for it and dropped down into the bathroom below with a thud.

As his feet slammed into the ground, Jeff took in several things at once. One, the other person he hadn’t been sure was alive before was a kid, maybe twenty, about a foot away from him, and clearly breathing but unconscious, a rag over his face. Two, he had been right, and the girl tied to the generator was definitely drugged up, and as he landed, she looked over at him weakly with blurry eyes that couldn’t focus. Three, the Clown had heard him too, and it turned on him in one long, slow, horribly motion, a sick smile slowly crossing its face. And four, behind the Clown, in the hallway there was another man about his own size, coming this way fast.

 _Oh thank god, two-on-one,_ thought Jeff, winding up a fist and slamming it into the Clown’s stomach.

His fist sunk into the soft flesh of the Clown’s enormous stomach, and the towering thing rammed a bottle into the side of his face.

It was familiar, and terrifying in a way nothing else was to Jeff, because for an instant he was reliving a night years ago when he’d been hit with a broken bottle during a fight after a show and nearly lost an eye. Watching the glass come in, hit him. Hit him and the thing seeing it coming. This bottle didn’t hit him in the eye though; it slammed against his temple and shattered, throwing a huge cloud of pink smoke up around him, and all of a sudden Jeff felt terrible. He gagged on the cloud and coughed, vaguely aware of blood dripping from his temple and feeling woozy from the blow and whatever was in the air, fighting to not lose focus, and he swung again, going for the Clown’s face.

The blow connected, and as he slammed his fist into the Clown’s nose, the man from before slammed into its back full-force, knocking it into Jeff and sending him staggering backwards as the Clown fought to maintain his own balance.

The other man was a little shorter than him, but stocky, with a scar at one of his eyebrows, and Jeff remembered being saved by him from a hook not long after he’d arrived here. One of the first people to help him. He looked truly terrifying right now, anger dripping from every angle of his posture and flicker in his expression, and wielding a toolbox like a club, he swung down hard, trying to bash the back of the Clown’s skull in while he was off balance.

As Jeff watched, the toolbox disintegrated on impact, not even really hitting the Clown, and the hulking thing swung around and swiped its huge butterfly knife across the stocky man’s chest and he fell back from the force of the blow. Not about to lose momentum while it was distracted by someone else, Jeff jumped on the thing’s back and went for a choke hold.

Surprised, the Clown wheeled back and tried to grab at him, but Jeff had his elbow firmly locked around the thing’s throat and he wasn’t letting go. Angry, the Clown reached behind it and dug the butterfly knife into Jeff’s back, and a horrible pain shot through his lower back, but he forced himself to hold on.

 _Not this time,_ thought Jeff through the pain, anger and fear melted together into a fierce concentration. He still wasn’t anything like used to being cut up, but if he let go, it was probably over for the drugged girl and the kid. There wasn’t a choice. He _couldn’t_ let go this time.

Losing a little steam, the Clown rammed its back into a wall, trying to stun Jeff enough to weaken his grip, but Jeff wasn’t letting that happen. It slammed him again, and then the stocky man was back up and running at the Clown’s chest. Seeing him coming, the Clown ignored Jeff for a second to make another stab at his other combatant, but the stocky man took the blow in his outer arm and grabbed the hand with the knife, trying to struggle with the Clown for control over the blade.

Furious, the Clown rammed Jeff against the wall again and tried to kick at the stocky man at the same time, both hands wrapped around the knife and trying to break it free again.

Jeff’s back was seriously beginning to be an unbearable pain as the Clown rammed him into the tile again, but the choke hold had to be getting somewhere—even these things had to breathe, right? So Jeff forced himself to keep going, looking at the drugged girl as she watched the fight with a confused look on her face as motivation to keep going.

Suddenly, the Clown let go of the stocky man with one hand, and Jeff wondered if it had a second knife in that coat somewhere as it went scrounging through its pockets.

 _Fuck I hope not, I can’t take many more holes in my back,_ thought Jeff, determined not to let go anyway. He could feel the Clown getting weaker with his elbow crushing its windpipe. _We’re doing it,_ he thought in slow disbelief, watching the stocky man below him struggle, _We’re actually doing this._

The Clown’s hand shot back out of the coat, and in it was a bottle, and this time Jeff held his breath in preparation, and then the pink smoke was everywhere as the Clown brought the bottle down hard on the stocky man’s head. The man started to cough but didn’t let go of the hand with the knife when the bottle hit him, fighting hard to keep his grip with blood dripping down his forehead, but the Clown wrenched the hand free with a huge tug and dug the knife deep into the stocky man’s knee.

With the stocky man temporarily out of commission, the Clown turned his sole focus on Jeff, ramming his back against a stall wall. Jeff screamed in pain as he felt the jagged broken tiles dig into his back, but he didn’t let go, and then suddenly the Clown’s hand was up at his face, gabbing onto it, and there was a rag in the hand.

 _Fuck!_ thought Jeff, trying to keep holding his breath, but weak already and about out of steam, and as he did, the Clown doubled over forward and, not expecting this, Jeff flipped off its back and slammed into the ground, hard. He barely had time to register this at all before a heavy boot came slamming down against his head, crushing it against the tile, and Jeff almost blacked out, overcome by a terrible pain. Through blurry vision, he saw the stocky man struggling weakly to his feet again, and as the Clown turned and saw it too, it raised the knife and gave a final stomp against Jeff’s head, and Jeff blacked out.

 

* * *

 

Quentin snapped awake and sat up with a gasp, the sudden clarity in his mind a stark difference from the weakness and confusion of losing out to drugs seconds ago. He was on a bed—his bed. His room. Home.

 _Fuck, no, no, no, no,_ thought Quentin in a quiet panic, slinging his legs off the side of the bedframe and standing up, nerves on edge and senses heightened, waiting for what he knew was coming, breathing shallow and quick.

It was so weird. It was so weird to be home—to be in his room, exactly the way he’d left it—remembered it. But it wasn’t real.

 _Come on, Quentin,_ he told himself silently, _You prepared for this. Come on, it’s not over yet._

There was a low, rumbling laugh that reverberated around him and Quentin turned frantically, trying to see every corner of the room at once, his attempt at control overwhelmed by instinctive terror at the sound.

“Not bad, huh?” came the Nightmare’s voice from everywhere around him at once. He sounded so pleased with himself, so proud. “Welcome home.”

“Oh, fuck you!” shouted Quentin at the ceiling, “Couldn’t hack it alone and had to get someone else to do your dirty work?”

The Nightmare’s voice laughed again, the sound bouncing off the walls and echoing unnervingly. “That’s cute. Are you really gonna try to talk your way out of this?”

Krueger was there then, in the flesh, only about six feet away by his dresser, and Quentin backed up automatically, hating himself for obeying the impulse.

“Go ahead,” said Krueger, gesturing at him with his free hand as he absently carved little slits into one of Quentin’s posters, “but surely you can think of something better than that.” He glanced over in Quentin’s direction, grinning. “I wouldn’t mind a little begging.”

 _Get to the door,_ thought Quentin, trying to back towards it slowly without looking at it. “What do you expect me to do?” said Quentin as he moved, eyes fixed on the Nightmare, “It doesn’t matter what I say. You won’t care.”

“Aww, that hurts me,” said Krueger without a hint of sincerity, not paying much attention, still carving slits into Quentin’s wall.

Eyes on the Nightmare, Quentin kept moving, almost close enough to make a sprint for the exit now and have a chance of making it. He took one more careful step and then turned and bolted. The doorway was only a few feet away, but as he reached the threshold, the door slammed itself on him and he saw the handle in the base of the knob turn and heard the lock click, and then the handle changed form and melted together, sealing the lock in place.

Quentin slammed his fists against the door and tried to break it open with his shoulder, but the wood didn’t even shudder at his blows. It just bruised him and remained firm.

“Trying to leave already?” asked the Nightmare from behind him, “We haven’t even had a chance to catch up.”

Turning in place, Quentin put his back to the door and faced the Nightmare, breathing hard. It grinned at him and walked casually past him, over to the other side of his room, picking up his things and inspecting them with careless disinterest.

“Is that really all you’ve got?” asked the Nightmare, glancing away from an old record it was holding to look at him again, “I thought you’d make this fun.”

Quentin’s eyes darted towards the window. The only other way out. The Nightmare followed his gaze and then looked back at him, a smile playing on its lips.

“You’re welcome to try,” it said, “But it might backfire. We’re not on the ground floor.”

 _I know, jackass,_ thought Quentin angrily, _This is my room._ It was only the second story. He could survive that.

“You gonna try it?” asked Krueger, watching him with amusement, “I could watch that.”

 _It won’t matter. He’ll just appear outside. You won’t make it fast enough._ Quentin swallowed, trying to remember everything he’d ever read about controlling dreams. _No, I can make it. I have to try._

“No?” asked the Nightmare, glancing back down at Quentin’s desk, “Too—"

Without waiting for him to finish or taking a second look at the Nightmare, Quentin shoved off the door and ran for the window, slamming into it and breaking through the glass, his trajectory sending him clean over the sill with a couple of cuts in his shoulder, and then he was freefalling sideways towards the ground.

 _Slow down, slow down, slow down,_ Quentin thought frantically, trying to make it happen, _It’s my dream. It’s my reality. Slow down!_

It worked, to his amazement, and his decent slowed, and as he twisted in the air trying to figure out how to land he saw the Nightmare looking down at him from his shattered bedroom window and his concentration broke and Quentin fell the last ten feet, slamming into a bush hard on his back and rolling off it painfully to land on the grass.

  _Fuck—fuck you can’t do that,_ Quentin thought as he dragged himself to his feet, _You have to focus. Don’t let him stop you._

His shoulder was bleeding a little and there was another hole in his t-shirt, but it wasn’t bad. The fall hadn’t hurt too much, but when he looked up the Nightmare was gone from the window.

 _Well, fuck,_ thought Quentin, looking around in the dark yard to get his bearings. Even though it had been a long time, he remembered where everything was. Like clockwork. _There’s the shed._

He took a step towards it, breaking into a sprint, and then suddenly the Nightmare flickered into existence right in front of him, and Quentin almost lost his balance as he skidded to a stop to avoid plowing into him.

“Here’s the thing,” said Krueger, unphased by having almost been collided with, “I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and I could just chase you around for a while, but where’s the fun in that? We’ve done that so many times before.”

Quentin tried to circle past him while keeping his distance.

“You know I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” continued the Nightmare, watching Quentin.

He didn’t respond, and a flicker of annoyance played on the Nightmare’s face for a second, and then he was gone and something grabbed Quentin from behind and sent him reeling forward into a tree. He slammed his shoulder hard against it and stumbled to his knees, turning to see the Nightmare standing where he had been, claws flicking together in the moonlight, making the horrible sound they always did, like scissors. Metal on metal.

“Do you think I’m not going to hurt you if you pretend I’m not here?” asked Krueger, voice tinged with irritation.

“What do you want me to say?” answered Quentin, pulling himself unsteadily to his feet, feeling anger start to build in his chest, which was good—that was better than fear. “Am I supposed to beg you to stop, or try to convince you to let me go?”

“They usually do,” answered the Nightmare casually, slowly closing the five feet of distance between them.

Quentin backed up, trying hard to keep an eye on the gauntlet without looking directly at it, not wanting to give him the satisfaction.

“Kris did, your friend Jesse,” grinned Krueger, blades flicking together and sparking, the noise a constant reminder of their presence as he advanced.

 _Fucker,_ thought Quentin, angry and wounded at the same time, trying not to think about Jesse. About how he’d died.

“Even Nancy,” finished the Nightmare, lunging forward suddenly to close the distance and catching Quentin’s collar as he tried to dart back.

As the fingers of the Nightmare’s un-bladed hand closed around his shirt, Quentin tried to tear free of the grip and the Nightmare caught him behind his head and neck with the gauntlet, making it suddenly very hard to move without slicing the back of his neck open. Quentin froze, his breathing shallow, anger and fear and disgust welling up in his chest and coursing through his veins.

“How about it?” asked the Nightmare, leaning close.

Quentin rammed his head forward against the bridge of the Nightmare’s nose and dropped to the ground like a rock, feeling the last blade of the gauntlet just barely catch the back of his head, leaving a shallow cut as Krueger swung at him. As soon as he hit the ground, Quentin rolled, and came up running for the shed. He could hear the Nightmare coming after him.

The ground suddenly shifted under him, no longer solid, and his feet sunk into it as he tried to run. It was like trying to run through mud, and Quentin had to tear his feet free with every step.

He heard the Nightmare laugh behind him and it came up slowly until it was almost beside him, watching as he kept trying to force his way forward.

 _Stop it,_ thought Quentin, trying to force the ground to go back to being the way it should be, _You’re my dream—stop it._ It wasn’t working at all this time, but he kept trying—kept tearing his sneakers free of the ground and pushing on.

“Need a hand?” asked the Nightmare, offering the gauntlet out towards him.

Quentin glanced and then focused on the ground in front of him again and kept going. He took another step and the ground suddenly solidified again, encasing his feet and trapping him. He let out an angry half-yell and tried to tear his legs free, jerking with all his strength, but all it did was hurt. _Fuck! Fuck—no, I’m so close._

Krueger walked until he was in front of Quentin and stopped, smiling at him. Even though he was working as hard as he possibly could to feel nothing, or just anger, Quentin felt sick, and scared, and he had to fight down the instinct to flinch as the thing in front of him flicked its bladed fingers together.

It reached out towards him then, and Quentin leaned back, trying to get as far away as he could with his feet stuck, but that wasn’t very far, and Krueger grabbed his chin with the gauntlet, blades sinking into the soft skin around his face as it held him there.

“Come on, what’s the matter?” asked the Nightmare, “You’re usually so chatty. So much bravado.”

“If you wanna kill me, then go on,” said Quentin, praying he wouldn’t hear the fear he felt in his voice, praying Krueger would do what he expected and try to toy with him first, not just cut him down here, “Get it over with. But I’m not gonna beg. You aren’t worth it.”

“Quentin,” said the Nightmare reproachfully, “Where’s the fun in that?”

It let go of his chin and Quentin made a grab for the gauntleted hand, trying to catch it and grapple, but the Nightmare saw it coming and slashed at him, cutting open the palm and fingertips on his right hand. Quentin cried out at the pain and the Nightmare laughed, watching him as he looked at the damage to his fingers.

“You know, you’re not my favorite, but you are special,” Krueger said.

Quentin looked up at that, feeling sick to his core and not wanting to hear whatever came next.

“Do you know what your dad said before he threw the gas can that started the fire?” Krueger asked, holding a claw up to the moonlight and studying Quentin’s blood on it, then slowly bringing the blade across his tongue and licking the blood from it as he watched Quentin before going on. “He said ‘this is for my son,’ so, that makes you special. It makes you the one I really, really want to hurt.”

His voice was so level and casual as he said it, like he was talking about what he’d had for lunch, or the fact it was going to rain.

“I guess it means no matter what happens, you can’t beat me,” said Quentin, watching him and feeling a deep, boiling despisement inside him, “I got you killed. Twice. You can’t even tie.”

“I’ve killed you a lot more than twice,” replied the Nightmare, eyeing him with just a flicker of irritation.

“Trials don’t count,” said Quentin, “They don’t last.”

“I’ll just have to make this one really memorable then, hmm?” said the Nightmare. It lunged and grabbed him around the throat, the ground accommodating and letting Quentin go, and then it threw him, back against the ground several feet away, into the wall of the shed, cracking it on impact.

It hurt, but Quentin was used to being hurt, and he saw the Nightmare coming and dragged himself back onto his knees by the time it got close, ignoring the pain in his shoulder and focusing on the problem in front of him.

“Do you know what it feels like to burn to death?” asked the Nightmare, coming to a stop and towering over him.

He didn’t answer, but he felt his pulse quicken and he saw the Nightmare smile.

“You’re about to,” said the Krueger. He flicked his gauntlet and around them the yard burst into flame. Quentin screamed as his sleeve caught on fire and tried to move away from the searing heat all around him, but there was nowhere to go. Nerves charred as his upper arm burned beneath the shirt and Quentin threw himself against the shed wall, willing it to break, and it did, sending it and him and the fire inside. He hit the cool concrete floor and rolled, trying to beat the flames out and finally managing to smother them.

In the broken hole of a doorway he’d created, Krueger’s frame shifted into view, lit up by the glowing flames around him and nearly blocking the moonlight behind him as he looked down at Quentin as the boy cradled his burned arm and crawled back, trying to get a little distance. It ran its gauntleted fingers over the frame of the garage and flames spread with him, catching the walls and the roof impossibly fast, sending crackling sparks above Quentin as groaning beams threatened to collapse under the pressure of burning.

“Fun, isn’t it?” asked the Nightmare, somehow both venom and a lightness in his tone at once, “Being trapped in a room like this. Nowhere to go.”

“I was a kid, you sick piece of shit,” said Quentin, staggering to his feet and trying to ignore the burning in his arm, “You did this to yourself.”

The fire was spreading along the back wall now, and creeping onto implements and tables. Everything.

Krueger laughed, a deep, horrible laugh, and slowly took a few steps towards him. “Maybe I should thank you,” he said, gesturing broadly at the room around them, “Look at everything I can do now.” The charred man lowered his arms and gave Quentin a little smile, watching as the boy kept backing away, towards the workbench and storage at the far end of the shed. “But I didn’t mean because of me. I meant because I thought it might bring back memories. All of this.”

The Nightmare gestured to himself then, and then Quentin, flicking his gauntlet in anticipation, and Quentin tried as hard as he could not to let it. Not to remember anything. _Don’t let him get to you, you’re so close. Come on, just a little more. Just don’t tip your hand, you’re so close. You’re so close._

He kept retreating, still cradling the burnt arm, and his back hit an old cabinet.

“So,” said Krueger, walking through the burning room with the practiced stalking gait of a predator, “Why don’t we really get started.”

Fighting to focus only on what he had to do and pushing memories as far from himself as he could, Quentin willed with every fiber of his being for the shotgun to be there, spun, and flung open the cabinet door, and there it was. _Thank God._ He snatched it and whirled back around, aiming at the Nightmare’s chest, blood dripping down his trigger finger from the gauntlet’s cuts.

Krueger took in the shotgun and laughed. “We’re in my world. You can’t hurt me with—”

Quentin pulled the trigger and the Nightmare let out a pained yell, stumbling backwards and looking down at the scattershot of smoking dents in his chest in surprise.

“Rock salt, you undead fuck,” shouted Quentin, jerking the pump-action shotgun and chambering another round. He pulled the trigger again and the Nightmare reached out a hand like he was trying to block him and took the round across his palm and arm with a scream. “This might be your world, but it’s _my_ dream,” said Quentin, cocking the shotgun and advancing, aiming for the head and pulling the trigger again.

Krueger stumbled back another foot, clinging to his head and swiping blindly at Quentin with the gauntlet.

“You took everything from me!” shouted Quentin, pumping the shotgun and chambering the fourth round, “Did you think I was going to make this easy?” He took aim, and Krueger swung at the shotgun, gauntlet cutting clean through the barrel and dropping a sixth of it to the floor below them. Quentin pulled the trigger and the shot scattered wildly all over the other man’s chest, burning him on impact and sending him reeling backwards, writhing in pain. All the time he’d been planning with Meg, all the nights he’d been trying to prepare for this, to think of even some small thing he could do to fight back, Quentin hadn’t known if this was going to work. He’d believed in it, though, and maybe that had been enough. He chambered the last round and the Nightmare vanished.

“Fuck,” whispered Quentin, spinning in the burning shed, looking for him, “Come back you fucking coward!” he shouted. Above him a beam gave way and he jumped back, barely avoiding taking a chunk of burning wood to the skull.

“Very clever,” came the Nightmare’s voice from everywhere around him, echoing among the flames and shadows in the firelight, “But I don’t have to play fair.”

There was nothing else in the room, but an invisible force slammed into Quentin and tried to wrench the gun away. The force knocked him against one of the burning walls and he rolled away, singed and trying to put out the flames against the concrete, but he clung to the shotgun with a death grip. He went up in the air and slammed down against the concrete, unable to fight against the nothing that was moving him, and the force of the impact knocked the breath out of him. _I’m not letting go,_ thought Quentin desperately, _I’m not._

The force threw him against the ground again, but Quentin refused to let go, taking the pain against his ribs and damaged arm and pushing through it, hands shaking with adrenaline as he dug his fingernails into the wood stock. Whatever had been happening stopped then, and Quentin dragged himself to his feet, clutching the gun to his chest. Another part of the roof caved in behind him and Quentin looked nervously around the burning shed. _I have to get out of here._ The door was on fire, but the opening he’d caused earlier was in full blaze and half blocked off by fallen chunks of wall, so Quentin ran for the door and kicked it open, wood splintering and giving way easily, and as it swung open there was someone waiting for him on the other side.

Running on adrenaline, Quentin was halfway to pulling the trigger when he recognized his father standing in the doorway, and balked. He knew it was a dream—he knew it wasn’t real, but he was deathly afraid of hurting the person in front of him, especially with what he had leveled, and his hands shook on the shotgun and he let go of the trigger and stared at the person he hadn’t seen in years, too surprised and flooded with a sudden surge of overpowering emotions to do anything else, and then his father flickered and was gone and Krueger came bursting from where he had been and grabbed the barrel of the shotgun.

Quentin pulled the trigger, but Kruger directed the blast up, and Quentin knew that had been the last bullet. There were smoking holes still running along the Nightmare, but it hadn’t been enough, and the man grinned at him as the gunshot echoed and the rock salt scattered harmlessly above them.

Furious at the look on Krueger’s face, at him for using his father against him, at the fact it had worked, Quentin let out any angry scream and swung the empty gun at the Nightmare like a baseball bat, trying to bash in his burned face. It caught him in the jaw and the Nightmare’s head cracked left with the blow impossibly far, like it had broken, then swiveled back in place like it hadn’t hurt him at all.

Breathing hard, Quentin took a step back, gun still raised defensively, ready for another swing, trying hard to figure out what to do. _Fuck—come on, think._

Watching him casually, smoke still hissing from where chunks of salt were embedded in his chest and arm and face, Krueger cracked his neck and walked after him, flicking his fingers together with a horrible slicing sound.

Mustering courage, Quentin rushed at him and swung the gun barrel at the Nightmare’s head again, and the Nightmare stepped back just barely out of the way. Almost stumbling, Quentin tried again, swinging up and over, and the Nightmare caught the gun in its free hand and jerked the barrel towards itself, catching Quentin off-balance and dragging him forward, stumbling with it. Finger’s still closed around the gun, Quentin almost rammed into the other man’s chest, and Krueger raked him across the face with his claws, tearing the gun out of his hands and sending it skittering across the yard as Quentin fell back with a cry, hands going up to the three long slits running across his brow, and nose, and cheekbone.

Krueger dusted his hands off as he glanced in the direction the gun had rolled, then turned his head back to Quentin and smiled.

 

* * *

 

“See y’all in there.”

David smiled in a tired sort of way, glad to be in a trial with Kate because her general optimism always made things feel a little less awful. Seeing Kate reach for a toolbox, he decided he might as well go all out too—maybe they could be fast. As he stood up, toolbox in hand, someone clamped onto his wrist with a grip like a vice, and he turned in surprise to see Laurie looking genuinely scared beside him.

“David! If Quentin falls asleep in there, he’ll die!” Her words were barely out and then David was gone.

 _What the hell’s she on about?_ thought David, confused, and then worried as he ran the words through his brain again, burning into existence in the meat packing plant. _Die? She mean…dead-dead? The hell?_

But Quentin never slept. What was she talking about? How would he die if he did—how could she know they were going to get the Nightmare?

There was the sound of a heartbeat, then, and David slid behind some crates, waiting for it to pass, unsure if the killer was below him or just around the corner.

 _Is good though, yeah?_ thought David, listening as the sound faded, _Means it’s no the Nightmare. So, he’ll be aright, yeah? An I can ask Laurie the hell that was all about when we get out._

That seemed right, but he still felt an undercurrent of anxiety coursing through him.

 _C’mon, do no do this,_ David told himself, spying a generator a few yards off and crossing to it, _Got to focus. Three others in here with you, n you can no just let your mind wander._ He knelt quietly and got to work with his tools, trying to move fast,

David had only been working on the generator for a few seconds when he heard a scream come from downstairs, and he was almost certain it was Kate. Had to be, right? It was him and her and Quentin, and probably the new guy.

David hated hearing people scream. He hated having to keep working. But he did. _Focus, is what she’d tell ya ta do,_ he told himself, knowing he was right. The generator under his fingers chugged away, and he heard Kate scream again. And then a third time, and a fourth and David looked up in surprise. _Legion?_

It could be. They tended to go stab-happy. Or maybe he’d been wrong, and it wasn’t the new guy, or maybe not Quentin in here with them—Meg hadn’t been at the fire, she’d been running. Could be both girls were here.

David hadn’t realized he’d stopped working, and when he did, he cursed himself and went on with it; but he noticed that no one went up on a hook. No further sounds. No heartbeat getting closer to him. A generator a little ways off lit up, and then David lit his own and moved behind cover and waited, but there was nothing. No scream from whoever was upstairs with him, no heartbeat coming to check the lit gens.

 _Something is no right,_ thought David, feeling more and more uneasy as seconds dragged on. _Okay, new plan. Find Quentin, stay with ‘im, just in case._

Feeling a little better with that resolve, David slipped down the stairs. He wasn’t sure Quentin would be there, but Quentin almost always went to help people when they got injured, and at least Kate and maybe someone else had been getting hit down here, so it was a good bet.

He hadn’t been going long before he heard the sound of a nearly finished generator, and David lifted himself carefully over a ledge into the alcove housing the generator, expecting to see Quentin or Kate beside it. But there was no one.

David looked around, confused, wondering if maybe something he couldn’t hear was closer than he thought, but there was no one looking out from a hiding place to give him a nod, or slipping back out of a locker to join him and finish the generator.

 _Is weird…_ thought David, staring at the nearly finished generator churning away by him, _Is no even been kicked._

That was what was really troubling. Not finished, not attended, and not kicked. But he was close to where he’d heard Kate get attacked earlier now, wasn’t he?

A strong sense of foreboding fell on David and he stood up slowly and walked past the gen, leaving it unfinished like its predecessor had. As he started to walk, somewhere not too far away, he heard a heartbeat. Staying lower and closer to walls, David kept going. But he had a bad feeling about this.

And then he rounded a corner, close to the bathroom, almost on top of the heartbeat, and he saw Kate, just barely, diagonally through the entry into the bathroom, and she was tied to the front of a generator with her shirt it shreds.

David started to run.

 

There had been a second during the fight in the bathroom where David had thought maybe he and the other man were going to win, but as he watched the Clown stomp the bearded man’s head into the ground, clutching at the deep wound in his knee, David had seen Quentin for the first time, and then he’d known.

As his eyes had landed on his friend, he’d seen him jerk and shudder, and blood had suddenly appeared and started to trickle down his shoulder, and David had understood what Laurie meant. He didn’t know how, but he knew with great finality what this was, because Quentin had described it to him a few times, during strategy meetings. Seeing it in person was sickening, and, giving up completely on the idea of beating the Clown and saving Kate and himself and the stranger, David made a mad dash to try and kill Quentin. It would only take a second. If he could just reach him, just hold him for a second, he could snap his neck and everything would be okay. David would never be okay, and he would have to remember ending the lives of two friends, but Quentin would live.

Desperation coursing through him, David shot past the Clown, not caring as the butterfly knife dug into his back, and then a foot from his goal, David’s knee gave out and he hit the bathroom floor. He was so fucking close. David crawled on his hands and knees as fast as he could. It couldn’t possibly have taken more than four seconds to reach Quentin, but he didn’t make it. Something grabbed his leg and dragged him backwards, and his reaching fingers caught a handful of Quentin’s hair and then were wrenched free, and he was struggling on his back against the weight of a larger man, trying not to breathe from a rag up to his face.

David couldn’t remember how long he’d lasted trying to do that. Only that when he woke up, he was laying on his stomach, and he couldn’t move his arms or his legs. His head was throbbing and hazy and he knew he wasn’t thinking right, that his reaction time was slow, but he was awake enough to remember. To know what was happening. And across from him, he saw Quentin twitch, tiny punctures around his chin that hadn’t been there before, and he felt despair seep up in his chest.

 _Ah failed you,_ thought David, wishing he were dead, watching his friend about six feet away, impossibly out of reach, _Ah fucked up. Quentin, ahm so sorry, ah tried. Please, god, don’t die. Christ, let me die instead._

He couldn’t do anything, though. Not even barter with a higher power for a trade. No one was listening.

David struggled then, trying to tear free of the ropes he knew he couldn’t break through, and the Clown whose presence he hadn’t even registered was above him then, looking down.

“Please,” said David, not able to angle himself in a position to see any higher than the man’s knees, “The kid over there’s gon ta die for real an forever if you do no wake him up. Yer boss’ll be mad if ya let that happen.”

The Clown stooped so it was on his level and looked at him, rope in its hand. Still drugged up and out of it, David was having a hard time focusing. He was awake enough to know he was drugged, but too out of it to be in control, and he tried desperately to force himself to stay awake.

“You’re a fucked up bastard, but you got to have some kind ah code, yeah?” asked David, praying it was true, trying to think clearly, trying to find something to say that might work, trying to find some sign in the Clown’s face that anything he said meant something to it, “He’s just ah kid. For the love of god, we’re one thing. Ahm a grown man. Was a fairer fight. Please.”

He felt like that was bad, and he’d done a poor job, but he was stumbling over words in his head, looking for good ones to say. _Why is it no enough that he’ll be dead an he does no deserve it?_ wondered David desperately, struggling to keep his eyes open, _The fuck did it have to be like this?_

“Please,” said David again, trying for the best thing he could think of.

The Clown met his gaze and held it, then very slowly smiled, and gave him one, very final shake of its head. _No._

_No. And the fucker’s proud of it, too._

The Clown turned and opened a carpet bag that was laying on the floor and started to take bottles out of it and line them up. There were so many of them, David’s fogged brain couldn’t keep count. But it latched onto something else, even in its haze.

 _You were no surprised by anythin’ I said,_ thought David, watching the Clown, _You knew. Before ah said anythin’. You did it on purpose, did you no? An Laurie knew somehow. You fucking piece of shit._

“Listen to me,” said David, very quietly, voice thin and hard and merciless. A tone he’d never spoken with before.

The Clown turned and looked.

“Ah know what you did,” said David, meeting its gaze and holding it, “You knew. Ya fuckin’ knew he was gon’ ta die, an that’s why ya did this. Some kinda plan.”

It didn’t make sense to David, but he could tell from the expression on the Clown’s face—not surprised, not confused, no emotion that was strong, but almost just a little pleased maybe, that he was right.

“Ah don know what ya get out of this,” said David, voice absolutely certain, irrefragable, “But if you let him die, ahm goin’ ta kill you. No today. Maybe no for a long time. But I will spend every second of every day of the rest of my life lookin’ for a way to end you, an when I find it, it’s goin’ ta be long, an it’s goin’ to be slow, an it’s goin’ to be so fuckin bad that you’re goin’ ta wish you could have been him today instead ah you when I get ta you. I god damn give you my word.”

There was dead silence, and for just a second, David thought the Clown was afraid. An expression flickered across the other man’s face that David could see even past the makeup, and it wasn’t happy, or angry, or annoyed.

Then the Clown slowly picked up a thick rope, stood up, and walked over to David. As David watched, the Clown tied a loop in the end of the rope, and then he grabbed David by his collar and slipped the rope around his neck. Without giving David a second look, the Clown threaded the other end of the rope over a pipe running across the top of the room, and then he grabbed David by the back of his shirt and dragged him up until he was balanced precariously on his knees.

“Will no change a thing what you do to me today,” said David, trying to meet the other man’s eyes, to make him see how serious he was, “Ahm goin’ ta kill you.”

The Clown didn’t look at him. Instead, he tightened the nose and as David did his best to struggle, weak and drugged and wounded, it attached the other end of the noose to the ropes securing his arms behind his back and his feet together, cutting slack until David was balanced precariously on his knees in a rope trap that half choked him already and dug into his throat if he moved or did anything beyond focusing on balancing on his knees.

It hurt, and in other circumstances it would have been humiliating to lose so badly to someone else, but David didn’t care. What he cared about was that to see Quentin, he had to twist on his knees and choke himself, which meant he could only do it for a few seconds at a time or risk killing himself from strangulation and leaving the others alone. There was no way he was going to be sure he could even be with his friend, watching when he died.

“You are no scared of me,” David said to the Clown as he heard the man moving around behind him, “But you should be.” Across from himself, David could see Kate, still unconscious and tied to the generator. If he twisted painfully far to the right or left, he could see the bearded man too, tied on the other side of the room. He forced his head into a position where he could see the Clown, even though the motion choked him and hurt. “You got until somethin’ really bad happens to him to change your mind,” said David, voice steeped in malice and the intent to kill, “An you do no know how long that will be. If he dies, ah will kill you. No matter how far ya go, or where you try to hide, ah will kill you with my own two hands. You can no escape that.”

The Clown looked at him, and he saw the same look flicker across its face for an instant, and then it was replaced with irritation, and the hulking man crossed over to him, rag in one hand and rope in the other, and shoved the rag into David’s mouth as he struggled, then tied it in place.

 _You were scared of what ah said,_ thought David with overwhelming hatred, _Good. Ahm goin’ ta make good on it ya fucking bastard._

 

* * *

 

Trying to kill the massive, overwhelming horror and fear building in his chest, Quentin backed up again, glancing around, trying to find something else to use—some way to fight back.

“Why don’t we take this somewhere more private?” asked the Nightmare, watching him with amusement as he backed away from it.

Mid step, Quentin almost lost his balance as his foot came down on a dusty pile of wooden blocks that hadn’t been there a second ago as around him his yard faded and Badham Preschool became reality again.

“Do you remember this?” asked Krueger, barely paying him any attention in the moment, full focus on a chalk board covered in children’s drawings. His voice was so conversational, so casual. “This was one of your classrooms,” added the man, turning to face him again.

Quentin didn’t answer. His eyes darted around the room, trying to figure out where exactly in the building he was. _Come on, don’t let him do this. Don’t let him win. You can do this. Think._ Dreams. Nightmares were about loss of control, and to combat that, you had to have something you could really believe in—something you were so completely convinced was real that you could depend on it. Like the shotgun—dangerous, real, deadly. And not something Krueger had been prepared for.

 _But there’s nothing in the Preschool,_ thought Quentin frantically, trying not to let his fear win, _There’s nothing here!_

No—no, that wasn’t true. Blocks and chalkboards were nothing—if anything, this was a place Krueger believed in more than he did, and he wasn’t going to be able to manipulate things or use any of it to fight. But that wasn’t entirely true. He’d beaten him here, once, with Nancy. And that had been real for both of them.

 _That’s it,_ thought Quentin, willing himself to believe in it. He spun on his heel and dashed from the classroom into what should have been a hallway, but as he moved through the doorway, Krueger was waiting by the same chalkboard. He looked behind himself and the man was still there. Like a trick mirror.

 _He’s fucking with you,_ thought Quentin angrily, trying as hard as he could to feel more of that and less of the fear that was a constant presence.

“Going somewhere?” asked both Nightmares, not looking at him.

Quentin hung in the doorway, scared and tense and breathing shallow, trying to watch both of them at once. The cuts across his face hurt, and the arm still burned, as if it was still on fire. His shoulder was sore and sent little stabs down his back to older cuts every time he moved, but more than that he was just angry and scared and sad. _I fucked up,_ thought Quentin miserably, _Laurie was right. Even if they couldn’t have done anything to stop it, I didn’t even say goodbye. It’s just going to be like it was when I lost Jesse for them._ He was intensely worried then, for a second, that Laurie might blame herself, and that met with old worries about his father and became almost too much to handle. _Stop it! Fucking stop!_ he told himself, trying to fight back the downward spiral, _It’s not over yet! You’re not dead! Come on—don’t let him beat you!_

“What did you have in mind?” asked both Kruegers, one still studying the chalkboard, the other’s eyes cutting over to glance at him, “The front door? The playground? The basement?”

When they said that, the whole area shifted, and suddenly Quentin was standing on a long metal walkway, steam pipes and bursts of fire everywhere around him.  Just one Krueger now, the one who hadn’t been looking at him before.

 _Fuck._ “That’s not the real basement,” said Quentin, hoping against hope the jab would work.

“Oh, you mean _this_ basement?” asked Krueger, gesturing with an arm, and there bellow them it was, like a little dim alcove somehow tucked into the middle of this orange hellscape. Quentin ran for it, leaping the railing and taking the fifteen-foot drop, curling with impact to try and lessen the damage, but coming up with his shoulder throbbing far worse than before.

He could hear the Nightmare’s feet land on the concrete floor behind him, and Quentin ran through Krueger’s old room for the debris at the far edge and found it—the same ancient massive paper cutter. Fueling belief into the action, Quentin closed his fingers around the handle like he had last time and snapped the blade free, whirling with it and slicing it across Krueger’s chest as the man reached for him.

Krueger stumbled back, staring down at a wound in surprise for the second time as gooey black blood dripped down his chest, and Quentin ran at him screaming, swinging the makeshift sword with everything he had. Faster on the uptake this time, Krueger moved and only took the hit as a glancing blow to the arm, and then swung at the blade with his gauntlet, trying to cut it in half like he had the shotgun.

 _No fucking way,_ thought Quentin, _You can’t break this._

The claws sparked against the makeshift sword and bounced off, and Krueger looked down at his hand in surprise as Quentin shot forward, trying to thrust the broken chunk of metal into his chest. Krueger managed to deflect it with his gauntlet, stepping back as he did to avoid being run through, and he angrily swung a hand towards Quentin and an invisible force rammed into him and slammed him back into the metal steps leading up to the railing. The impact hit him across the line of only partially healed cuts on his back and sent a wave of pain up him. Disoriented, Quentin saw the Nightmare coming after him and struggled to regain his feet, backing up the stairs wounded, blade in front of him, a last line of defense against the thing coming up the stairs after him.

Krueger came slow, letting his claws spark along the railing as he advanced on Quentin, enough distance between them that they were both out of easy striking range. Trying to look stronger than he felt, Quentin kept himself angled, doing his best to be aware of his footing without taking his eyes off the man coming after him. He reached the walkway and backed up, Krueger turning and following him, a focused look on his face, but behind it, the beginnings of a slow grin spreading.

 _What do you know?_ thought Quentin nervously, darting his eyes behind him in case there was something he couldn’t see. Krueger lunged at him the second he looked away, and Quentin just barely caught the motion, swinging back around and swiping at the gauntlet, makeshift sword just barely catching the blades and deflecting them. They hung in tense half-motion, facing each other, ready for the other one to spring first; and, irritated, Krueger lunged at him again; and again Quentin slammed his sword into the hand, blocking it. Krueger narrowed his eyes and flexed the blades on his fingertips, watching the kid in front of him in a mixture of frustration and anticipation.

“Come on, motherfucker!” shouted Quentin, blade up and arms bent, ready, confidence building.

He did—shooting forward and slicing at Quentin’s arm, and again Quentin deflected the gauntlet, swinging past it this time and raking the blade across the Nightmare’s face. It caught Krueger off-guard, and Quentin drew back and swung again, taking a chunk out of the side of his cheek, and again, swinging harder and faster, tearing a gash in the side of its head, and then he swung and the Nightmare caught the sword in his gauntlet, sparks flying, and backhanded Quentin with his free hand, the impossible force of the blow sending him flying backwards into the far railing, denting it on impact and almost sending him over it.

Pain shot down his shoulder, far worse than before, and looking at the way it was hanging, for a second Quentin thought his left arm was broken.

“You want to play the hero?” asked the Nightmare, voice full-on angry for the first time since this had started, “Have a little fun? I can think of a better way to do that.”

Dragging himself to his feet by hooking an elbow over a rail, one hand still locked around the sword and unwilling to let go of it, the other arm too hurt to use easily, Quentin looked up at Krueger, and then the railing gave way and he was freefalling. Around him, the steam pipes and catwalks and fires collapsed and shattered, falling with him and around him, no sign of the Nightmare anywhere.

 _Shit! Shit—Slow down!_ Quentin told himself, turning in the air so he could see where he was falling and trying to copy what he’d done earlier, but there wasn’t time—he’d only just thought to stop himself when he slammed into the ground, scraping his head against a chunk of stone and leaving a raw little gash on his forehead.

Around him it was quiet. Just the sound of wind and a storm building. He could smell dirt and something that was maybe flowers, and the patch of earth he’d landed on was soft.

Groaning and dazed, Quentin pulled himself to hands and knees on the soft patch of earth and looked up to see a headstone looking back at him.

 

* * *

 

Kate didn’t remember what had happened. Only that she felt sick.

Something…Something had gone very wrong. What had…?

But her head was foggy and thudded with a dull ache, and it was so hard to think.

“Kate!”

It was her name, but the voice was muffled, like she was hearing it from underwater. She knew who was talking to her, but she couldn’t put a name to it.

“Kate, wake up!” The voice again, and then a sound she didn’t know, and then whoever it was screamed her name again.

 _It sounds bad. You need to wake up._ She tried, struggling as hard as she could to open her eyes. Through blurry vision she was vaguely aware of two shapes moving not far from her.

“No!” The voice kept going, but she couldn’t tell what it said after that. The sound was choked and muffled.

 _I know you,_ thought Kate, trying to move her arms and prop herself up. But it wasn’t working. Her body felt heavy and impossible, and it wasn’t obeying her. Her chest hurt, and her throat hurt. She felt so confused.

Kate wasn’t sure how much time passed, but one of the blurry shapes opposite her stopped moving and the larger one carried it over near her and dropped it close by. Kate tried to turn her head to look at it, and just barely managed.

 _That’s Quentin,_ thought Kate, recognizing what she could see of his face past a rag draped over it. That was bad. Kate didn’t know why, but that was really, especially bad, and she felt scared then. She hadn’t felt anything but confused and a little hurt before, but anxiety shot through her, fueled by the fact she couldn’t remember what it was she was supposed to be scared of.

The big blurry shape knelt by Quentin and bound his hands together and then his feet, and then left him where he was and came over to her. Deftly, large hands lifted her up and carried her across the room. Kate couldn’t remember what was happening, but it felt wrong, so she tried to struggle. She barely even managed to move her arms.

She was dropped and the large person dragged her arms behind her and tied them in place, fastening her to something metal and loud Kate knew she should have known the name of. Being tied down hurt, and Kate knew it should have scared her, but she was still thinking about Quentin—trying to remember why that was bad. The large shape stooped in front of her and grabbed the back of her head to hold her in place and forced something over her mouth and nose that smelled sweet and bad at the same time, and Kate blacked out again.

She was vaguely aware are after a little bit of some loud sounds—shouts, and voices she thought she knew, but Kate faded in and out through that. The next time she was truly aware of anything was later.

How much later, she wasn’t sure, but Kate dragged herself through a drugged, barely conscious haze into something like wakefulness at the sound someone laughing.

That, too, was a sound she knew. _The Clown,_ thought Kate, forming a coherent thought finally, and as she focused her eyes, she became really aware, for the first time, of what had happened.

Her head ached, and she felt slow and foggy, but she was awake. Awake, and in the bathroom. And she remembered then.

She had been in here, working on the generator, and heard the Clown coming. It had thrown its cloud of drugs and gotten a lucky hit on her as she ran, and then grabbed her hair as she slid over a pallet and dragged her back. That had sucked, and she’d expected to be hooked in the basement, because they’d been awful close, but instead of doing what she’d expected, the Clown had held her against its chest and dug its knife into shoulder. She’d screamed, hurt and confused, and then it had shoved her up against a wall and hit her.

She hadn’t known why. In all her time here, Kate had never been _punched_ by anything.

And then it had grabbed her throat and held her against the wall and put a rag over her face, and she’d recognized the smell of drugs from descriptions in Nancy Drew books and long weekends of mystery series Netflix ques, and screamed—trying to warn others, trying to make him stop. Right before the trial had begun, when she and David had been disappearing from the campfire, Laurie had grabbed David’s arm and said, “If Quentin falls asleep, he’s dead!” They hadn’t known what it meant, and they hadn’t been able to ask. The last word had only mostly made it out before they were gone. The warning hadn’t made sense then and it still didn’t make sense now, but Laurie was rarely someone who looked scared, and she had been shaken to the core in that instant, so Kate had believed her. She wasn’t entirely how the Nightmare worked, but the look on Laurie’s face haunted her, and held against a wall with a rag over her face, fighting frantically, fears had fallen into place. Kate hadn’t known if people dreamed while drugged, but if movies were something to go by, the answer was yes, and Laurie’s warning was still echoing in her ears, and she had struggled against the Clown with everything she had, trying to warn anyone who could hear, but he’d closed his fingers around her throat and choked the sound out, and then she’d been gone.

There wasn’t a lot else Kate remembered, but…Quentin…Quentin had come to help her. _Fuck,_ Kate realized, choking on the emotion in her throat, _He heard me scream and he came to help me—this is my fault. I messed up. That’s why he hurt me—he was trying to get people to come._ And now, as her vision was focusing and her head finally clearing, Kate could see just how bad things had gotten. She only vaguely remembered seeing first Quentin, and then David and the new man before, in her drugged-up state, but they were all here now.

And it was bad.

Kate was tied to the generator she’d been working on, arms fastened over the metal rail at the edge of it and held in place by thick rope, tied so tight it was biting into her skin. Her feet were tied together too, and to the base of the generator, forcing her to kneel, and her shirt was hanging from her shoulders in tatters.

That wasn’t as bad as the rest of the bathroom, though. Across from her, there was David. He had blood running down his forehead and like Kate, his arms were bound behind him. Only, David also had a gag—a rag in his mouth held in place by rope, and another length of the same thick rope tied around his neck. A long pipe ran from one end of the room to the other, and the rope around David’s neck went over the pipe and then back down, where it was attached to his bound arms, and then after a short length of taught rope, to his bound feet. It was a cruel setup, and David was awake opposite her, and Kate could see him struggling to maintain balance on his knees to keep from choking himself. There wasn’t much room for error. Their eyes met, and she could see how miserable he was.

 _Hang in there, big guy,_ thought Kate, praying silently that things would be okay. As she turned her head and took in the rest of the room, she felt her hope drain away. Past David, on the far side of the room, was the new guy. He wasn’t awake yet, bruises forming on one side of his face, and matted blood sticking his hair to the other. His hands were tied to a circular spigot above him, and his feet to the base of the same pipe.

And then on her right, by the bathtub, lay Quentin. He was out cold, face drawn and rope around his wrists and ankles. Kate looked towards him, worry soaking into her, praying for some sign that he was okay. There was blood leaking from his hand, and as she watched he moved feebly, letting out a weak sound of pain, and what looked like a burn started to appear on his upper arm.

 _What? What the fuck? How is this possible? _thought Kate frantically, struggling against the bonds around her arms, _What’s happening to him?_

But she knew—she knew enough, anyway. There was only one thing it could be, wasn’t there? For him? For him, and like this?

Seeing the look on her face, David struggled around on his knees, trying to turn his face towards Quentin without choking himself. He could only hold the position for a few seconds before turning back to stop choking himself, but David saw, and Kate watched as the color drained from his face, and for a second he struggled frantically against the ropes at his feet and hands, and she saw the noose tighten around his throat as he thrashed.

“David, stop,” begged Kate quietly, trying not to cry and desperately afraid of him dying and leaving her here alone to try and fix this. He looked at her and saw the expression on her face and stopped, forcing his head up and trying to focus on breathing again.

A little past the new man, but closer to him than Quentin—about opposite with what were maybe showers once, and about a foot from David, there was an array of items laid out on the floor in the center of the room. Bottles, mostly, but so many of them, a variety of sizes, and beside them was a large carpet bag Kate could see the tops of more bottles peeking out of. Kate squinted, trying to read labels on the ones she could see. There was one canister of kerosene for sure, and on a few of the larger bottles she could make out matching labels reading _Ether,_ but everything else was too small for her to see clearly. She had a terrible feeling about all of it.

There had been no sign of the Clown, but as she thought this, she heard the heartbeat, and then a dragging sound, and in the doorway was the Clown. He was dragging a pallet with him, and as she watched, he stepped inside, and then dragged the pallet over the doorway, closing off the exit.

Turning away from his finished work, the Clown saw her and David watching him and smiled, then walked past them to Quentin and knelt by a little bottle she couldn’t see the label on. After carefully measuring out a dose onto the rag, the Clown knelt by Quentin and set the rag over his mouth and nose, and then turned back to the rest of them.

His eyes scanned her, and then David, sizing them up hungrily, and then he walked past them both to the new guy, stooped by him, and hit him. The stranger didn’t respond, so the Clown hit him again, and this time the man groaned, still not opening his eyes. Not quite satisfied, the Clown smacked him, hard, and the stranger’s eyelids fluttered, and then slowly opened.

It took him a second, but then the man registered the scene in front of him and his eyes opened wide and he started to struggle, looking up and back in surprise at the ropes around his wrists and ankles, and then back over at David and Kate, lingering in horror on David, and then he turned his attention back to the Clown.

“Why?” said the stranger, looking up at the Clown in confusion and fear and despair, “Why are you doing this?”

The Clown didn’t answer. He just laughed a low, guttural laugh, and turned from the stranger to his collection of things in the center of the room. As he selected a few containers, Kate thought frantically, trying to come up with anything she might be able to do.

 _We have to wake him up,_ she thought, looking over at David, able to tell from his expression that he was fixated on the exact same fear. _We have to get to him before he’s dead._

Tools chosen, the Clown went back over to the stranger and knelt in front of him again, taking out his butterfly knife and flicking it around his fingers expertly.

Kate could tell from the mixture of fear and exhaustion and dread on the new man’s face that he knew exactly what was about to happen.

“You have to hunt us, right?” asked the stranger again, trying to stall or to get through to the Clown, Kate wasn’t sure, “But why this?”

Ignoring him completely, the Clown flicked his butterfly knife and dragged it deep across one of the knuckles on the man’s right hand. He cried out in pain, and the Clown brought the blade down in front of the man’s face and sliced open first one and then the other nostril while the stranger struggled and screamed. Grinning, the Clown kept going, cutting out little squares of flesh on the man’s arms and letting them drop to the ground as he screamed. Time dragged as he went methodically, with practiced ease, and Kate started to silently cry, looking from the stranger to where Quentin lay. There was blood leaking from his shoulder and hand onto the white tile floor.

“Please,” begged the stranger between screams, “You don’t have to do this. You could be better than—”

The Clown dug another hole into his arm.

“Stop it!” shouted Kate, still no idea what to do but unable to bear watching this any longer, tears streaming down her face, “Please! Please don’t do this!”

To her shock, the Clown hesitated. The stranger lifted his tired face, blood dripping down it, and looked over at her and their eyes met, his grateful and surprised. The Clown looked over his shoulder at Kate.

“Please, let us go,” begged Kate, “If there’s anything human left in you at all, just this once. Please. I don’t know what you want, but you’re a person too, like us, aren’t you?”

The Clown turned his head away from her and turned his attention back to the stranger, shifting. He brought the knife up a little, and then turned back to Kate and gave her a sickening smile.

 _What?_ thought Kate in shock, stomach bottoming out in horror, _No._

“Wait,” begged the stranger, staring into the butterfly knife the Clown had leveled at the eye he had a large scar across, “Don’t.”

The Clown slid the blade in and Kate looked away and closed her eyes as she heard the man scream.

_Fuck. Fuck!_

“Please, please stop!” shouted Kate, forcing herself to open her eyes again and look up. The stranger was thrashing and screaming in pain, the Clown still kneeling in front of him. It turned its head and grinned at her again then, and stood up.

 _Oh,_ thought Kate, feeling sick as he started to walk towards her. David struggled and tried to say something through the gag as the Clown passed him and stopped by her.

Heart pounding, Kate looked up at the disgusting man before her. His paint was grotesque, and he stunk—of alcohol and cigars and not bathing and blood, and she felt faint. He ran the butterfly knife blade along her collarbone and Kate tried not to look at it.

“Please,” whispered Kate, face still wet with tears, “Please, let us go.”

Behind them, they heard Quentin cry out, and all four turned to look. Kate was just in time to see three bright red gashes carve across his face, even though there was nothing there. _No! No, oh God, please, no._

“Please,” begged Kate with a renewed franticness, straining against her ropes, “Look at him—he’s just a kid. You can torture us and kill us and we’ll come back, but it’s not like that for him, please, he’s going to just be dead. Really dead. Forever. You have to care about that, please—please, just look at him! He’s young—he’s just a kid! Please, please let him go! Do whatever you want with me, but please!”

The Clown watched her, taking in the tears streaming down her face, and then looked back at Quentin. As they watched, something happened and Quentin’s shoulder jerked in an abnormal, painful looking way. Kate heard David struggling through the gag and felt sick. The Clown looked back down at her. Beyond him, she caught a glimpse of the stranger looking from her and the Clown to Quentin in confusion.

“Please, please,” pleaded Kate, choking on the emotion in her voice, “I know you don’t want to do this. You have to have had someone you cared about in your life once, didn’t you? You were a kid—you have to remember what that’s like. Please, please don’t let him die like this. Please, I’m beggin' you.”

Slowly, the Clown took her in, and then he walked over to Quentin.

Kate was afraid to hope, but she couldn’t look away. As she watched, the man knelt by the small boy and took the rag off his face.

 _Oh God—oh thank God—I can’t—he’s really? Oh thank God, I never—thank you, thank you._ She was overcome with relief and started to cry over that instead, watching.

The Clown glanced at her, and then walked over to one of his bottles, measured out an amount, soaked the rag in it in one deft motion, and then walked back over to Quentin and laid the new rag over his face.

 _No,_ thought Kate, hope shattering in her chest, _No, you can’t. Please._

“No, please,” she said out loud, “Please, let him go. Don’t do this.”

Turning to glance at her for a second, the Clown paused again, still stooped by Quentin.

“Please, if this is what you want,” said Kate, motioning towards her companions with her head, “Then I’ll come back—I’ll let you do this to me every single time I’m here. I’ll do anything you want! Just please, god, please don’t kill him like this!”

The Clown met her gaze and held it, and then, ever so slowly, he stooped, lifted one of Quentin’s arms, and sliced off a finger with his butterfly knife. Marking a kill.

“No,” Kate sobbed, choking on what should have been a much louder sound. Across from her, David struggled against his ropes and she saw a horrified look on the stranger’s face.

Smiling in a way that wasn’t like a real smile at all, the Clown walked back over to Kate and pocketed his knife, then selected one of the containers he’d brought with him. It was a clear flask, but as he brought it close to Kate’s face her mind warned her frantically that it smelled like bleach.

“God,” whispered Kate, looking down at the bottle he was practically holding out for her to inspect, and then back up at the man himself, “Please. You can’t want to do this, deep down.”

A slow smile spread across his face as she said that, and Kate felt sick.

“Leave her alone,” she heard the stranger call weakly from where he was tied down. The Clown didn’t even turn to look.

Eyes meeting hers, the Clown reached the flask out slowly and brought it up to her lips, and Kate tried to turn her head away, forcing her mouth closed and rolling in her lips. She closed her eyes and felt the cold glass pressed against her mouth and then some of the liquid from the bottle poured out onto them and it felt strange against her skin and sent waves of dread down her.

Her head snapped back then, and she opened her eyes to see the Clown leaning over her, fingers in her hair using it to tilt her head back, and she struggled as she felt the glass against her lips, and then the tip of the beaker went into her mouth and there was a taste like vinegar.

She heard the stranger shout something, but all she could register in that moment was trying not to swallow. She struggled, and as she did the Clown held his hand over her mouth, forcing it to stay closed now, and kept her head tilted back, trying to force her to swallow, and finally against her will she did, and there was a delay, and then a burning sensation in her throat and her gag reflex kicked in, and her chest burned, and the Clown let go. Body heaving against the ropes and the generator, Kate vomited, again and again, until there was nothing left to throw up, and then she just kept dry heaving, throat raw, lungs hurting, sick and disoriented and unable to register anything but her body’s continual urge to puke.

As the heaving finally stopped, Kate hung there, exhausted, and she finally registered a presence other than herself again and looked up to see the Clown watching her, swirling the remainder of the container of bleach for her to see, and Kate felt like crying.

Past her, she could hear David trying to say something, struggling against the noose and the bonds around his arms and legs, eyes on her and looking desperate and sick, and past him the stranger, similar horror on his face as the watched her with his remaining eye.

Above her, the Clown took out his butterfly knife and the sounds from David increased in volume, and then over in the corner, Quentin cried out weakly. The others turned to look too, and the Clown held up a finger for her to wait, stood, and walked back over to her unconscious friend. As he went, Kate saw a scrape appear on Quentin’s forehead

 _We’re running out of time,_ she thought desperately.

 

* * *

 

“Jesse Braun.”

The name stared back at him, a smear of his own blood from where he’d scraped his head running over the last two letters.

The sight hurt, and Quentin backpedaled, trying to get off the grave—away from the headstone. He dragged himself to his feet, right hand still closed firmly around the hilt of his weapon, and looked around.

It was a place he knew. Not well. He’d only been there five times. To bury his mother, as a very little child, and then to bury Dean, and then a few days later Kris, and then Jesse. Then finally Nancy’s mom.

He didn’t know it well, but he knew it. He’d seen a lot of it the last month he’d been alive and home. And the gravestone was exactly right. The right shade, and shape, and size. He remembered staring at it blankly for fifteen minutes while he’d been only vaguely aware of the preacher’s words. Trying to listen, but also trying to stay awake, and not able to do both right. Trying not to think about how Jesse had died.

“Fuck,” whispered Quentin, turning from the grave and looking around himself again—looking for Krueger, because he wouldn’t be far. There was nothing, though—no one. Just trees and graves and stones with names on them.

Today it was misty, the sky overcast and dark, wind whipping around him and making the tress bend, but he knew where he was. The graveyard was hilly, like he remembered. Tall trees with no low branches. Rising row after row of hills dappled with their little grey stone markers, like frozen waves. But it was wrong—off. The graveyard was right, but the graves weren’t all in the right places around him.

Walking carefully, sword up, Quentin took a step and a pale white gravestone on his right caught his eye. “Elizabeth Cook.”

_That’s weird. It wasn’t here before, but I don’t know any…Why is that name familiar?_

He turned and looked back at Jesse’s grave and by it was another familiar name Quentin didn’t quite recognize, “Carrie Bush”.

Off to his left he thought he sensed movement, and Quentin spun around, weapon raised, but there were just more graves: “Kristen Fowles, Marcus Yeon, Sukari McGill.” Each a different color headstone, and none with inscriptions. Just names. _That can’t be right,_ thought Quentin, and then out of the corner of his eye he saw a name he knew, a stone he knew, and he turned to face it, and everything clicked: “Dean Russell”.

 _Fuck, it’s them,_ he realized, looking around for Kris and finding her headstone where it shouldn’t have been, only two graves past Dean, _It’s all of us. It’s everyone he’s killed._

There were the rest of them, and Quentin followed the line, glancing at names as he passed. Bret Tanner, Craig Jackson, Lisa Harper, Gwen Holbrook. His eyes landed on “Nancy” on one on his left and his heart jumped in his chest even though he knew it was stupid to let that scare him, but it wasn’t her. Nancy Lumb.

“Not that it would have mattered,” muttered Quentin under his breath, trying to reassure himself. _Where’s mine?_ he wondered, looking for it. As well as he knew the Nightmare, he was going to be surprised if there wasn’t an open grave a few feet away and a headstone with his name on it.

Quentin started to keep going into the graveyard, but there was a flicker of lightning overhead and he heard an awful sound behind him, like something made out of flesh ripping slowly, and turned around fast, sword readied. He sucked in a breath and drew back on instinct, jumping at the sight of a body draped over Nancy Lumb’s headstone.

“What the fuck?” whispered Quentin, horror washing over him as he looked down at it. Her wrists were slit vertically down the entire forearm, blood somehow still draining from her even though she had to have been long dead. Her face was pale and lifeless, drawn in pain and fear, and Quentin felt sick and like crying looking at her.

When he turned away from the headstone there were more. They were all there. Nancy’s mom was on his other side, eyes gauged out and blood dripping from her open mouth, a little further down he saw Kris splayed out over her headstone, body torn up and chest open.

 _It’s not real,_ he tried to tell himself, choking on the urge to cry, staring in blank horror and regret and pain at the scene around him. But it was real. It was real enough. It didn’t matter if these weren’t their real bodies—this had happened. This had all really happened. They were dead, and they’d died like this. Gruesomely, unfairly, without any hope or mercy or chance of making it out. He could barely see Jesse from where he stood, down at the end of the row. Nothing but a mass of mangled flesh left of his friend. His eyes welled up and he swallowed hard, not willing to cry, trying to shut this all out.

At the end of the row behind him was a headstone bigger than himself, and as he stood there in the low fog, turned away from it, he was sure suddenly that this time there really had been a movement behind him, and he spun to face whatever was coming from the other side of the headstone, sword raised to strike.

And it was Nancy.

It was Nancy—it was _his_ Nancy.

She jumped and took a step back at the sight of him, eyes widening with surprise.

 _It’s not her,_ Quentin told himself desperately, frozen with his arm raised, _he’s just trying to fuck with you again. He’s stuck in here, and she’s out there—he can’t get to her. It’s not real._

He knew it—he _fucking knew_ it was true, but Quentin took a step back, staring at her with the same shock and semi-betrayed horror she was looking at him with.

“Quentin?” she asked, and it was her voice. It was exactly like he remembered. She looked past him to the graves and took in the sight, blanching and looking like she might throw up, bringing a hand up to her mouth as she gagged.

Quentin just stood there dumbly, staring at her, trying to make himself move, trying not to cry, trying to get his emotions under control.

“No,” said Nancy, looking from the bodies back up to him and backing away, “You’re not. He’s finally come for me.”

 _Don’t buy it,_ Quentin told himself, every impulse in his body desperately begging him to reach out to her, to talk to her, _He’s playing you. It can’t be her—not in here—that’s impossible._

She looked past him, and then behind her, and then back at him.

“You’re not real,” said Quentin, hoping saying it out loud would make him believe it. He took another step back, “This won’t work!” he called past her, at nothing, “She can’t be here, and we both know it, so fucking end the charade!”

“What?” said Nancy, looking at him, confusion and surprise and suspicion flickering across her face.

“Don’t come any closer,” said Quentin, still backing up, but pointing his weapon at her as a warning. He didn’t think he could really use it if she did, but he hoped she wouldn’t be able to tell.

“What are you trying to pull?” asked Nancy, first at him and then at the air around them, “’I’m not real’—is that supposed to make me think it’s really him?” she asked the sky, “This isn’t the first time you’ve thrown a corpse at me and hoped it would work. Quentin’s dead.”

It was convincing. It was so, so convincing. And Quentin wanted to believe it, but he knew he couldn’t, and he kept backing away from her, slowly, a foot at a time.

 _It’s not her, it’s not her,_ he kept telling himself. He was feeling too many things at once—so much relief and joy and happiness at the sight of her face crushed to dust with the realization that this couldn’t be real, the overflowing pressure of his sudden inability to repress or forget how much he missed her and his dad, and how utterly alone he felt not just always but here, in this moment, and even deeper a lingering, hollowing terror that he might be wrong. What if he was wrong? What if he was wrong, and it was her, and he did the wrong thing?

_It’s not her. It can’t be._

She looked older. In her 20s. But still so familiar. Dark circles under her eyes, long brown hair falling past her shoulders, white shirt and a long brown jacket, so similar in choice to things he remembered her wearing. She was painful to look at, and almost crushed by indecision, Quentin felt sick.

 _Did you have to do it like this?_ he wondered, feeling so many things so strongly his body was begging him to cry to get rid of them. To be able to move past.

“She’s not here,” Quentin said to the air around him, trying hard to be convincing and trying harder to ignore the Nancy in front of him, “This is stupid. It’s not going to work.”

Nancy looked at him, and for a second he saw the same flicker of confliction in her face.

 _I can’t do this,_ Quentin thought desperately, _It’s too much. I can’t do this._

He’d backed up so far he was abreast with Jesse again. Quentin had never meant to get close enough to have to see him, but he hadn’t been paying attention, and now he was between his hollowed out friend and the strangled body of Carrie Bush. With him so close, Quentin couldn’t _not_ look at Jesse, and it was too much. Because Quentin knew exactly what had been done to him. It was the way the Nightmare usually killed people here, in the Entity’s realm. Run straight through from behind by the whole gauntlet, chest torn out. Quentin had died that way himself some huge number of times, and it hurt. It hurt so fucking much. But beyond that, it was scary. You never saw it coming, even if you knew he was going to do it. And it wasn’t fast. The blow was fast, but you died for a long time, unable to move or blink or breathe, just suffering on the ground. And Jesse hadn’t had some kind of consolation. No campfire to go back to, no steps towards beating the Nightmare, no friends with him. He’d been alone, in jail for a murder he hadn’t committed, fighting to stay awake, fighting a battle that was impossible to win. No one had been there. So utterly alone.

“Quentin?”

It was Nancy’s voice, and he looked up. She’d come only maybe a step closer, and she was looking at him carefully, face still suspicious and cautious.

 _Don’t,_ thought Quentin, _Please, I can’t talk to you. I miss you so much, I can’t talk to you like this here._

“How did you die?” Nancy asked him. He couldn’t tell from her expression if she was sad, or angry, or something else, but her face was intent and focused. “We never found you.”

“I didn’t,” said Quentin, even though he knew she wasn’t real—knew he shouldn’t have answered. “And you know that,” he added, voice hollow and rough, trying to save it, “Drop the act, Krueger.”

Nancy started to take a step towards him, watching him carefully, a multitude of emotions flickering across her face, and then she hesitated and hung there. Even though there was a good twenty feet between them, Quentin could see she was breathing fast.

“I want so badly to believe you,” said Nancy, and he thought then that _she_ might cry, “But I can’t.”

Quentin swallowed, trying hard not to cry himself and close to losing. _Why? Why did you have to do it like this? Wasn’t killing me going to be enough?_

“That’s good,” said Quentin, trying to choke down the emotion in his voice, “But it’s not her.”

“Quentin,” said Nancy, taking a half-step forward again, and Quentin turned away from her, having too hard a time looking and her and not answering at the same time, and as he turned away he saw a flicker of movement and looked back. He only had one horrified second to register the Nightmare behind her.

“Nancy!” he shouted, trying to warn her, and she whirled around and Krueger ran her through.

Quentin screamed and the blades came through the back of her ribcage bright red and as the Nightmare lifted her body over his head Quentin saw Nancy flail and kick for a second and then stop moving, and the Nightmare grinned at him and threw her.

It was a split-second decision, and he knew it couldn’t be her, but Quentin was broken and afraid, so afraid in that instant, and he dashed forward and caught her, careful not to hit her with the sword, the force of the throw knocking him to his knees as he skidded back with Nancy in his lap.

He expected her to open her eyes and run him through, but she didn’t. She was just still, unmoving, not breathing, and her blood drained out of her hollowed chest onto his lap and he knew with absolute certainty that she was dead.

“Nancy?” whispered Quentin, holding her limp form in his arms, willing it to wake up, willing it to not be real, willing it to run him through so he would be able to know that it had never been her. It remained lifeless in his arms. “No,” said Quentin, shaking his head at the body, “No, it can’t be you. You aren’t here. He can’t get to you. It’s not her!” he shouted, looking up at the Nightmare, clinging to the body.

“Alright, then give her back,” said Krueger, and suddenly an invisible force was jerking her away from him, back towards the Nightmare.

“No!” The cry was hoarse and desperate. He knew she couldn’t be real but he didn’t, and it was too much, and it was her, and he didn’t want to let go—he couldn’t lose her, he couldn’t let him have her body like everyone else, like some fucked up trophy, just there to remind everyone he’d had you, and barely even feeling the pain in his badly damaged shoulder, Quentin let go of the blade to grab her with both arms and dragged her back into his lap, trying to shield her, and immediately the tugging stopped and he had her again.

Not registering anything but her, Quentin looked down at Nancy’s pale face and brushed some hair out of it gently, leaving a smear of blood from his sliced fingers as he did. Crying and shaking silently, Quentin lifted her body up and rested his forehead against hers, arms wrapped around her, and somewhere in front of him he heard the Nightmare clap slowly. Furious and broken and in pain, he looked up, eyes red, and saw the thing he hated most in the world smiling back at him.

 _Oh fuck,_ Quentin realized suddenly, and he looked beside him, and his blade was gone. He’d known it would be. _Fuck—I’m so stupid,_ he thought, overcome with rage and despair and hatred.

“Was it worth it?” asked Quentin, looking up at Krueger, disbelief and hatred dripping from his voice, “All of this—just for that?”

“It really was,” answered the Nightmare, grinning at him, “Such a moving scene. I thought you wouldn’t be that much fun when we started, but you’ve really made this one memorable.”

Nancy melted from his hands into the ground and he was alone again as the terrain shifted around them, growing darker and colder as Quentin looked up at the Nightmare, still on his knees. Nowhere left to go.

“Don’t worry,” said Krueger, “I have something good in mind for you.”

And then they were back. Back in a room Quentin had never wanted to see again. Concrete and brick walls, cold floor littered with dirt and debris from time and decay, dirty cot, old children’s drawings lining the wall. The cave.

Krueger turned to him and smiled.

 

* * *

 

As the Clown walked over to Quentin and checked the rag over his face, Kate watched, terrified at the thought of seeing more wounds appear and more scared at the thought of looking away. The stranger followed her gaze to Quentin and stared at him for a few seconds with the eye he still had, then looked over at Kate. “What’s happening to him?” he asked, voice confused and scared and ragged, and looking overwhelmingly troubled and disturbed by what he was seeing.

“He’s asleep,” said Kate, trying hopelessly to think of some way to quickly explain, “There’s one here who can kill him if he he’s asleep. For real, forever.”

“Like _Charmed,_ ” she heard the stranger say in a horrified undertone to himself. He looked back at Quentin and then her, still trying to process that for real. “Dead?” he asked again, “No more repeats. Even here?”

Kate nodded.

“Please,” begged the stranger, turning towards the Clown as it stood up and started back towards Kate. The Clown looked over at the stranger as he stooped by her again and Kate saw the stranger take in the sadistic disinterest in the glance the Clown tossed his way, and the stranger’s face fell. “If—if he dies, he’ll never come back here. You won’t get him again,” the stranger tried again.

This time, the Clown didn’t even look over. He took the butterfly knife back out and dragged it along Kate’s hipbone as she screamed and jerked away on instinct, trying to think through the pain.

 _I can’t—_ thought Kate in confused desperation, _I can’t think like this—I, I have to come up with a plan, or Quentin’s going to die. I can’t—_

Even that barely coherent string was broken as the Clown sliced at her other hipbone, and then her abdomen, slowly working his way up towards her ribcage. She wanted to focus, and think, and all she could think about was that Quentin was going to die, and then the pain would block out her ability to think past it to anything else and she would scream, over and over, for how long she wasn’t sure. She was vaguely aware a few times of the stranger’s voice, but she didn’t really take anything in at all until there was a change and she was suddenly aware of a break in the pain, and Kate looked up to see the Clown glancing behind himself. It took her a moment to realize he was looking at David.

As she watched, there was a furious choked string of sounds from David as he struggled against the ropes holding him up and strangled himself, and, enjoying his desperation, the Clown turned from Kate and went over to David.

“Come back,” said Kate weakly, watching David, “Please don’t hurt him.”

“Haven’t you done enough?” pleaded the stranger from across the room, watching in mirrored horror as the hulking clown knelt in front of David and started to sort through a handful of vials.

 _Shit, shit, this fuckin’ monster doesn’t care,_ thought Kate, watching the Clown, _He’s not gonna care no matter what. Is there anything left in there that’s human at all?_ And then in her pain-riddle fog Kate realized she had lost track—she hadn’t been watching Quentin—and she turned towards him in desperation, praying he was still alive. He was still as she watched. It seemed to her like he’d been still for a while now, and it took a few seconds for her to see his chest rise and fall, assuring her that he was still breathing. _There’s still a chance. Okay. Okay, okay, okay._

Terrified and frantic and giving up entirely on the possibility of convincing the Clown, Kate looked around the room frantically for anything usable. A corpse by the toilets, the Clown’s bottles, fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling, lockers, toilets—fuck! There was nothing at all! Nothing, and she was tied to a generator. Focusing on that, Kate frantically tugged against her restraints, trying to free a hand or a foot or something, no plan but desperate for any edge she might be able to use.

Across from her, she saw the stranger take her glance towards Quentin and scanning of the room and then her frenzy of activity in, and then he did the same, fighting against his ropes and trying to free himself, but fighting much more weakly than Kate. He’d lost a lot of blood.

Although he had to have been aware of their bids to escape, the Clown ignored them both, seeming entirely unthreatened by their attempts. Without so much as a glance their way, he uncorked a vial he’d decided on, then reached over towards David, who thrashed wildly in his restraints. Watching him, the Clown thought over the situation again for a moment and then set the vial down and took out a rag and held it up to David’s face as the man struggled, waiting a few seconds for the anesthesia to partially take hold and weaken him before he let go and picked up the vial again.

As the Clown moved, Kate continued to fight against her ropes, but she fixed her eyes on David, not wanting to see what happened but feeling like she was abandoning him if she looked away.

 _Come on, come on,_ she thought, trying not to panic, trying not to cry, looking first at Quentin and then David, _There has to be something._

 

* * *

 

The cave only had one exit, and the little hidden doorway was open behind Krueger, backlighting him and obscuring his features against its brightness. As he smiled at Quentin, the Nightmare flicked his fingers and the door slid shut behind him with a deafening, very final clang. As the sound echoed around the dark room, lit only by candles tucked among the brick wall beside an old clown mask, the immediacy of his situation finally truly took hold and broke through the surge of emotions Quentin was feeling and he shot to his feet.

There were no steam pipes here, no fire, but Quentin could still hear the hissing of them as the Nightmare turned from the door to face him, rubbing the blades of the gauntlet together as their eyes met.

 _Fuck—Fuck! There’s nothing I can use!_ He looked frantically around the small room, backing behind the little table in the center of the small space because its flimsy wood form was the only burrier the space could offer. The fear he’d been fighting against since the nightmare started was becoming overwhelming and he struggled against it, trying desperately to think—to come up with anything else he could do. He grabbed one of the candles off the little table and threw it at the Nightmare, but the sizable thing sputtered into dust well before reaching him, and the Nightmare just looked down at it and then back up at him and smiled.

“You can’t hurt me here,” said Krueger, a smile in his voice, advancing, “That’s not what happens here, remember?”

“Stay the fuck away from me!” shouted Quentin, chest welling up with panic as he backed up frantically, trying to keep the table between them.

The Nightmare slammed his gauntlet into it and sent the table and chairs flying into the wall, shattering into dust on impact.

Quentin’s back hit the wall, hands frantically scrambling blindly for something—anything at all that could be used as a weapon. There was nothing—nothing in the whole room. Just pictures, candles, the old box he knew was full of photographs, some hangers by the exit.

 _Fuck!_ Expecting to get hurt, Quentin shot forward, trying to make it past the Nightmare somehow to the door, and to his surprise it let him, just turning in place and watching as he ran. Quentin reached the exit and tried to slide it open, but it wouldn’t budge. In a panic, he rammed his good shoulder into it, again and again, but it held. Like his bedroom door, not even creaking at his impacts against it.

“You can’t leave,” said the Nightmare, eyes fixed on him, a hint of deeper malice in its voice than the lighthearted tone it had been speaking with before, “This is my world. I had to work to get you here, but now that you are, you’re mine. You aren’t getting out this time.”

Heart pounding in his chest, Quentin gave up on the door and grabbed one of the coat hangers off the wall, bending back the tip and holding it with the pointed end leveled at Krueger like a weapon. Like it could do anything to stop him.

“That’s cute,” said Krueger, advancing on him again, fingers slicing at his side. When he got close Quentin lunged at him, and Krueger caught his hand and tore the hanger out of it, then grabbed the back of his shirt as he struggled and flung him against the far wall.

It hurt, and he was slower pulling himself to his feet this time, his bad shoulder screaming in pain as he put weight on it and tried to leverage himself up onto his elbows, and then Krueger was beside him and he kicked him in the gut and Quentin collapsed again on the cold floor. Struggling to breathe, he tried to drag himself back up, and Krueger waited until he’d made it to his knees and then kicked him again, and Quentin went down.

Kneeling beside him as he struggled up this time, Krueger grabbed him by his hair and dragged his head back, slamming it into the concrete wall beside them.

Quentin’s vision went black for a second and when he could see again, he was on his back, half-propped against the wall, and Krueger was bent over him, blades inches from his face. He felt weak, and sick, but the fear was stronger, and Quentin struggled, screaming and trying to kick the man off him and grab the hand with the gauntlet to hold it back. Quentin got a hold on the clawed hand, and Krueger grabbed his hair again with his free hand and rammed Quentin’s head back against the wall, harder this time, and then again, and again, and barely conscious, Quentin stopped struggling. He could feel blood trailing down the back of his head and down his neck. Everything was blurry and hard to focus on, except the fear. He knew he was going to die, and before that it was going to be worse, and Quentin was terrified of that, but he didn’t have the strength to struggle.

 _Don’t give up,_ he begged himself, trying to recover, trying to focus again, _Please don’t give up. Come on. You’re still alive. It’s not over._

“That’s better,” said Krueger, running his blades lightly across Quentin’s neck, “Now. Where do we begin?”

Quentin swallowed hard and turned his head away, trying not to look as scared as he was, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing that, but beyond terrified. Krueger smiled down at him and placed one bladed finger under Quentin’s chin, forcing his head up, making him look at him.

“You always try not to look,” said Krueger, tilting the boy’s head back further and letting the tip of the blade dig into his skin, “Why don’t we start with something you won’t be able to hide from.” He shot out his free hand and grabbed Quentin’s chin with it, holding it in place, and then slowly lowered the blades towards Quentin’s face.

 _Please, don’t,_ thought Quentin, unwilling to say it out loud, knowing begging wouldn’t change anything and determined not to give the monster on top of him the satisfaction. He struggled weakly against the hand and the knee on his chest.

“Go ahead, fight all you want,” said Krueger, digging the tips of the gauntlet into Quentin’s face above his left eye, “It just makes this more fun.”

He tore the blades across Quentin’s face, ripping it open and leaving four deep red gashes across it as Quentin screamed and bucked, trying to get him off.

Above him, Krueger smiled and closed his eyes, sucking in a deep, satisfied breath. “Oh, you have no idea how good that feels,” he whispered, “Keep screaming.”

Quentin choked on the pain and fought not to make a sound, body still twitching at the pain.

“No?” said Krueger, opening his eyes and looking down at Quentin, “Guess I’ll have to give you more incentive.”

He sliced deep into Quentin’s chin, holding the blade there against the bone and digging it in, holding pressure while Quentin struggled and writhed under him, trying not to scream, trying to get Krueger off of him, trying not to give in to the fear of the room and the sharp tearing sensation and the blood pouring from his face. Krueger moved on, then, and then started to drag little cuts across his neck, and then moved down from there and drummed his fingers on Quentin’s chest thoughtfully as beneath him the boy breathed shallow and quick, trying hard not to make noise.

_I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die like this. I don’t want to die here. God, please. Please. Any other way._

Thoughtfully, Krueger ran a blade of the gauntlet down Quentin’s chest and along his leg and the fear overwhelmed him and Quentin inadvertently let out a choked sound like a whimper.

Krueger looked up at him in surprise, and then a smile flickered across his face. “Can you keep a secret?” asked the burned man, leaning forward with his arm propped against his knee, “I wasn’t sure when I did this if I was going to kill you this first time. You’re so fun to play with; I kill you and that’s over. I have to pick a new favorite. But, god,” he sniffed the air and sucked in a long breath again, smiling at the scent. He looked back down at Quentin and smiled. “It’s going to be so worth it. Getting rid of you like this. Finally, really. And there are plenty of your little friends for me to move on to.”

Quentin felt sick, and he had to choke back the urge to cry.

“But don’t worry,” continued Krueger, slicing a little cut into his chest, “I’m going to make this special.”

Enjoying every second, Krueger slowly inserted a claw into Quentin’s forearm, digging it into the muscle an inch at a time as beneath him the boy pitched and struggled not to scream. Once it was all the way to the knuckle, Krueger quickly twisted the blade, and Quentin lost the struggle and screamed as the sensation tore through his arm.

He withdrew the blade and chose again, forcing Quentin’s leg down with a knee and slicing his calf open as he watched the boy’s face, savoring the reaction. The pain and fear. Krueger shifted again and placed his gauntlet on Quentin’s thigh; and it was too much. Terror and misery and pain and memories shot through Quentin—of bad trials here with the Nightmare and long minutes after everyone else was dead, of being four, of Springwood and his friends when all of this had come back.

 _I can’t—I won’t die here, God, please, not like this._ The terror overloaded his brain and Quentin struggled to remember everything he knew, to find something, anything he could turn to. Something that could protect him—help him. Something he believed in enough for it to still be real here.

Around them, the terrain suddenly changed as Quentin’s fear and desperation overtook him, and Krueger looked up in surprise as suddenly they were back where they’d started. On the driveway outside Quentin’s house.

Through the desperate fog in his head, Quentin turned and looked and saw his dad where he’d been the last time. Reading a newspaper right there, right through the window, so close. So close.

Krueger followed his gaze to his father and looked back at Quentin, confused for a second, and then amused. “You think he can help you?” asked the Nightmare, looking back towards the man in the window, “Like he helped you last time? Or when you were little?” The idea seemed incredibly funny to Krueger, and he moved off of Quentin and stepped back.

Weak and disoriented from fear and blood loss and pain, Quentin looked from Krueger to the man in the window in confusion and surprise and terror.

“Go on,” said Krueger, gesturing towards the window, “Try it.”

Quentin swallowed hard and looked back at his dad. He was so scared and hurt he wasn’t thinking right, and he sort of knew that—he knew it wasn’t his dad, but it was. It looked like him. He was home, he was so close to home, and his dad, and safety.

He looked back at Kruger, because it felt like a trap, and the burned man gestured to the window again. Quentin turned his head to face it, afraid to hope but terrified and alone and dying and so close to the only person that his terrified mind believed would protect him. His dad was so close, just a few yards away. Alive, and okay, and if his dad could just see him, he would come and save him, and it would be okay. If he could just make him look up and see.

“Dad?” Quentin called weakly to his father. His dad didn’t look up. He just kept reading the newspaper.

Despair washed over Quentin and his heart pounded weakly in his chest as he felt Kruger shift behind him. _No, no dad, please—I’m right here—please turn around. Please help me._

Eyes fixed on his father, Quentin forced himself to roll over onto his stomach through the mass of pain that tore through him as the movement hurt, and he started to crawl. Arm over arm, desperate, he dragged himself towards the front door, leaving a long red streak behind him in the grass, fighting through the agony rolling down his shoulder, through his arm and leg, and the ache in his head, trying to make it to the house.

“Dad!” Quentin called again, willing him to look up, “Dad, please!”

Behind him, he sensed movement and turned to look, and he saw Krueger starting to come after him, a grin stretching across his face.

“Dad!” screamed Quentin, dragging himself harder, faster, blood soaking into the lawn as he called for him as loudly as he could, “I’m right here! Dad, look up! It’s me, it’s Quentin! Please! You have to help me!”

The features on his father’s face were neutral as he studied the print in front of him, not once glancing towards the window, not looking up, not hearing anything. Quentin felt fingers close around his ankle and was suddenly being dragged back.

“No!” he screamed, fingers digging into the dirt, trying to kick at Krueger and fight free, “Dad please!” he screamed, reaching a bloody hand out towards the window and putting all the strength he had left into his voice, “Dad! I’m right here! Please look up! Please help me! Dad, I need you! Please!”

His dad never even glanced away from the newspaper. Quentin saw him slowly turn a page as fifteen feet off, Krueger dragged his son away from the house and threw him onto his back again. Crouching over him, Krueger looked from Quentin to his father in the window and laughed.

“Thank you,” said Kruger, “That was everything I needed.”

He ran his gauntlet along Quentin’s face and Quentin blanched, closing his eyes and turning his head away.

“I forget, but you really are fun,” said Krueger with a hint of laughter in his voice, “It’s so easy to hurt you.”

Breathing hard and feeling sick and exhausted and hopeless, Quentin looked up at him. He could feel the pressure of the claws on Krueger’s hand as they ran along his chest, looking for a good place to cut him next.

“You know,” said Quentin weakly, watching Krueger’s face, “I felt bad for you.”

Krueger paused from inspecting his chest and glanced over at Quentin with mild interest.

“Once,” continued Quentin, feeling everything all at the same time. The memories from Springwood, from Badham, from the realm, from today. Nancy, Jesse, his dad, Kris, Dean, his friends here, himself. All of it. The overwhelming loss and despair and trauma. And so, so completely alone. “Back when I thought you were innocent,” added Quentin, breaths coming in shallow and weak, “I felt bad for you, because of what they did. What you showed me.”

The air was chilled and the sky cloudy overhead as Krueger watched him, gauntlet resting on his chest.

“But now that I know,” said Quentin, voice tired and ragged, “I’m so glad that you’re dead.”

Above him, Krueger’s eyes narrowed just a fraction. The tiniest tinge of irritation.

Quentin smiled weakly. “And no matter what you do to me, Nancy’s out there and she’s safe, and she beat you. And my dad’s out there and alive and he killed you. So it doesn’t matter. I still won.”

He was scared and it was hollow comfort, but it was true; and he clung to it. _It’s okay,_ he thought, trying to comfort himself and believe in it. _It’s okay to die. You did your best. You fought and you never gave up. And Dad’s okay and Nancy’s okay, and he won’t be able to do this again. You’re the last one. The others can make it without you. It’ll be okay. When you die you can see mom again, and Jesse. Someday, everybody. It’ll be okay._

“Let’s see if you still feel that way at the end of it,” said Krueger, venom dripping from his tone. He grabbed Quentin’s head and tugged it back, exposing his throat, and dragged a blade down from his forehead, past his cheekbone, and down the side of his neck. Krueger leaned forward and ran his tongue up the cut, licking the blood from it, fingers wound through Quentin’s hair still forcing his head back, and as he did, Krueger reached back and Quentin felt the gauntlet slice into his inner thigh, and overcome with a last surge of fury and desperation, Quentin screamed and fought, not caring if it killed him, kicking his legs and trying to throw the man off him, and then he felt the gauntlet sink into his stomach and a debilitating wave of agony washed over him. The fight went out of Quentin as his strength left him, and he stopped moving.

“Now,” said Krueger, drawing the blades back out with a second agonizing shock to Quentin’s system as the sharp metal slit free. The man looming above him flicked the blood off his blades and flexed his fingers, “Where were we?”

 

* * *

 

As Kate watched, the Clown shifted, his eyes fixed on David, and pushed David’s head down and dropped a little splash of the vial onto the back of his neck. He screamed through the gag and struggled, choking himself.

Kate didn’t know what was in the container, but she saw smoke rising from the back of his neck like he was on fire as the liquid touched him and he tried to scream. _Acid? God._

The Clown went again, this time for David’s fingers, and Kate watched him writhe and choke himself and try to cry out.

“Please!” shouted Kate, wanting to vomit again and fighting down the urge to cry, “You don’t have to be like this. I know you killed before you got here, and ya kill here. Maybe you like it, maybe it’s just second nature to you now, or ya feel like you don’t have a choice, but you always have a choice.”

Pausing in its work on David, the Clown glanced over at her again.

“You were just like us once, you could be again,” pleaded Kate, knowing it was a losing battle, but trying everything she could think of. In the corner of the room Quentin screamed—a loud, real scream, and all of them looked, even David, skin still smoking, and they saw four telltale red gashes across his face, and his body started to thrash.

 _Fuck, fuck! We’re out of time! God, please!_ Memories shot through her of things Quentin had said about his past, his family, his plans for a future when they got out. _Fuck, I can’t save him—and it’s my fault, I let myself get used to catch him, I was the bait. He can’t die—I can’t let him die!_

“Please,” begged Kate with every ounce of conviction she had, “There’s still good in you—there’s good in everyone. Choose to do the right thing. Please, don’t let him die. Please, I’m beggin' you. You have all the power. You could use it to do somethin' good—to save someone. Please, you could do it—only you could do it. Please! Please, I know you can!”

The Clown watched her for a second, then Quentin, then he stood up and walked over to her. He crouched in front of her and took out the finger he’d cut off of Quentin and held it up in front of her, waving it like he was taunting her, and a slow grin came over his face as Kate fought down the urge to sob.

By the bathtub, Quentin let out a choked sounding whimper, and Kate lost her struggle and began crying silently, watching him across the room, just out of reach.

 _Fuck, there’s nothing._ He was going to die ten feet away from her, and there wasn’t a fucking thing she could do to stop it. She was going to watch him die.

Crouched beside her, the Clown flicked out his butterfly knife and cut a little slice by her collarbone, but Kate didn’t even really register the motion, all her thoughts and emotions tied to the unconscious kid just a few feet away. By him, Kate’s gaze flickered over bottles of kerosene and ether, and then she saw the bearded man staring back at her, trying hard to get her to look at him.

_What?_

He was mouthing something, and looking from her to the bottles on the ground, but she couldn’t tell what for a second. The Clown saw the confusion on her face and turned to look, and as he did, the stranger immediately stopped and started just shaking his head at her sadly like ‘don’t’, perfecting the change in behavior before the Clown’s head was turned towards him.

 _‘Ether,’_ Kate realized, going over the word he’d been mouthing on repeat. _Yes, lots of bottles of…_

_No._

Kate looked again, choking on a vague possibility. Hope against hope.

_Ether—ether’s an explosive, right?_

She wasn’t sure. She had vague memories based off of a movie she’d caught part of on cable, old chemistry textbooks, some segment in a spy novel she hadn’t finished during a road trip. Had that really been ether? This ether?

 _I can’t reach it, though,_ she thought desperately. The bottles were closed and intact. If the stranger was right, then to have enough gas in the room to cause an explosion, they’d need to break all of the bottles, and they’d need to do it fast, without the Clown catching on in time, and that was impossible. The only person who could reach even a few of the bottles was David, if he went the full length of his tether and choked himself, but even then it wouldn’t be enough. Maybe four bottles at most. _We’d have to get the Clown to cut him down, and even then, I’d have to find a way to tell David without the Clown catching on, and we’d have to find a way to light it within two seconds of breaking the bottles, and we don’t have any fire._

But it didn’t matter, because it was all they had. Kate thought frantically, struggling to come up with something and hyperaware of the blood pooling around Quentin in her peripheral vision as she stared past him. She looked at David, hoping to get his attention, and the Clown narrowed his eyes at her, suspicious after what had just happened.

_Shit. I have to be careful._

Beyond them, Quentin’s leg was bleeding now, and he was shuddering all up and down his body.

_Okay, okay, think Kate. If you were ever gonna get to choose to do one thing right your whole life, this is it. I could—no, no, damn it, I don’t know any songs about—oh, oh wait!_

She gave silent thanks for her little brother’s taste in music and looked at David, who looked weakly back at her. _Got him._ She turned to the Clown and opened her mouth.

“No thesis exists for burning cities down at such a rampant rate, no graphics and no fucking PowerPoint presentation,” said Kate, trying hard to remember lyrics, stumbling through them as she went fast. The Clown stared at her in very genuine surprise and confusion. She looked past it at David with emphasis, praying he would understand her, force in ‘bomb’ and ‘suicide’ as she said them. “So they just DIY'd this shit and built their own bombs. She's his suicide blonde, she's number than gold.”

Confused, David looked back at her, understanding he was supposed to get something, but not sure what she was doing, or what he was supposed to get.

 _Fuck,_ thought Kate, and she kept going, singing hard now through the raw pain in her throat. “Are you ready for another bad poem? One more off-key anthem. Let your teeth sink in. Remember me as I was, not as I am. And I said, ‘I’ll check in tomorrow If I don't wake up dead.’”

Genuinely taken aback, the Clown stared at her as she sang, so completely confused it took him a second to do anything. Then he smacked her.

She hadn’t been expecting that, and her head snapped back with the force of it. The blow stung, and she felt her eyes well up with tears on impulse, but she kept going.

“My love is a weapon, there's no second guessing when I say, ‘My heart is a grenade,’ you pull the pin and say, 'We're all fighting growing old, we're all fighting growing old, in the high hopes of a few minutes more! To get—get on Saint Peter’s list,” Kate sang, furious tears streaming down her face.

David was watching her, frantic now. In the corner, Quentin thrashed and screamed again, and David looked desperately from him to Kate. The Clown looked away from her towards Quentin as he screamed, and Kate locked eyes with David and let her eyes flicker from him to the ether, praying he’d get it as she kept singing.

“Our guts can't be reworked, as alone as a little white church in the middle of the desert getting burned,” she hung hard on _burned,_ and the Clown turned back towards her, irritation on his face. He cocked back a fist and punched her, and the blow stung against her cheek, but she kept on. “But I'll take your heart served up two ways! I sing a bitter song! I'm the lonelier version of you, I just don't know where I went wrong!” Her voice cracked on the words as she looked at David in desperation, “My love is a weapon, there's no second guessing when I say, ‘My heart is a grenade!’ You pull the pin and say—"

The Clown drew back his hand and hit her again, and Kate felt a tooth break free, but she kept going through the burned throat and the blood in her mouth.

“We're all fighting growing old, we're all fighting growing old! In the high hopes of a few minutes more!” She built steam, half screaming the words now.

David looked from her to the bottles on the floor. Something like recognition flickered across his face as Kate kept going, and he looked back over at her for confirmation.

"—You sink inside her like a suicide bomb,” sang Kate, choking on the words and locking eyes with the Clown and nodding, praying David would get it. The hulking man punched her nose hard and as her head snapped back she heard the bone crack and felt blood streaming down her face, but she kept going. “He says 'I've seen bigger,' she says 'I've lived better,' and they throw the matches down into the glitter!”

Behind her, David grabbed the back of his rope and lifted himself into the air, hanging himself an inch of the ground and choking himself, and Kate’s eyes widened. The Clown followed her gaze again and took in the sight of David killing himself angrily as Kate kept right on singing. Irritated, the Clown left her and moved to David, slicing through the rope above his neck and sending him painfully to the ground with a thud. David lay there, breathing faintly, eyes closed.

The Clown started to reach down for him and Kate started to scream the lyrics as loud as she could, trying to bring him back. A few feet away, Quentin let out an agonized yell, pitching wildly.

“We’re all fighting growing old, we’re all fighting growing old, in the high hopes of a few minutes more! To get—get on Saint Peter’s list!” shouted Kate.

Across from her, hearing the chorus for the third time, the stranger joined in, volume as high as hers, “But you need to lower your standards! ‘Cause it’s never getting any better than this!”

By the far wall, Quentin stopped moving. Kate screamed even louder, praying they were in time. The Clown looked from her to the stranger angrily, and then moved back towards Kate. The second his back was turned, David contorted on the floor, and she saw him jerk the hands burned by acid again and again and the thumbs snapped and his hands were dragged free of the ropes, bloody and deformed, and on his knees David turned towards the row of sealed bottles and shoved them into the still mostly full carpet bag sitting beside them. Hand halfway to smacking Kate again, the Clown turned in surprise at the sound, and Kate shot her head forward as far as she could and sunk her teeth into his arm, and as she did, David grabbed the bag of bottles and, with enormous force, threw them against the wall.

There was something like thirty bottles, and on impact the sound of glass shattering filled the room as the bottles broke against the wall, spewing concentrated ether everywhere along the floor of the little sealed room and all around them the bathroom was overcome by an overwhelming sweet smell in the air that made Kate feel faint. Ripples of the pinkish fog that always accompanied the Clown spattered the wall and mushroomed out, thickening the air so much it was hard to see, and leaning back as far as she could reach, believing with every fiber of her soul, Kate sparked the generator.

For a moment there was a flicker as the spark hit the air, and Kate thought it had all been for nothing, and then Kate was conscious for the first second of combustion, a flash of light accompanied by a terrifying sensation that slammed against her in what she imagined was what it felt like to be hit by a truck or to impact concrete face-first from several stories up and in the split second she was aware there were sounds she didn’t know and then a feeling like pencils had gone through both ears and shattered inside her, and then the ether blew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually include research facts for fun at the end of chapters, but I'm not sure how useful or interesting the effects of swallowing bleach or being burned by sulfuric acid are. It's interesting to note that in high enough concentrations, ether mixes with oxygen to form a very dangerous explosive. A large enough container has similar explosive capabilities to a stick of dynamite. In addition, while films usually make knocking someone out with a rag drenched in something like chloroform very easy, it's more complicated than that. There are drugs that can put you under pretty fast if inhaled that way, but usually they dissolve in the air, so whoever was trying to force a rag on your face would have to know exactly when you were coming and be able to apply the drug right before trying to grab you, or else risk the drug dissolving from the rag or inhaling some of the vapors themselves and also ending up getting drugged. Unfortunately for everyone, the Clown seems to be immune to his own things in-game, so he probably doesn't need to be anything like as careful as he would have back in reality. In addition, even if you measured out the perfect amount of anesthesia, you'd have to get the person to actually breathe it, and most people with a rag shoved over their face are going to try and hold their breath. Assuming the attacker was someone who really knew their stuff and had a good enough supply and knowledge to successfully drug someone without messing it up, then the problem after is keeping them down. Anesthesia delivered through the airway is something that has to be at least semi-constantly applied to not stop working, the timeline depending on the type used, so it's doable, but that means someone has to be constantly making sure the person is getting re-drugged so they stay under.  
> In addition, salt is considered to be something that can bring protection or cleansing against evil spirits in most cultures, and is a common ward against ghosts of various types, which is some pretty fascinating stuff, and the song Kate is singing at the end is a 2013 Fall Out Boy song called Rat A Tat.
> 
> Okay. Well. This is probably the grimmest thing to me personally that I've ever written, so I hope people make it through it okay. It isn't pleasant to write, but it's important to me not to sugarcoat the horrors people go through and the ways that hurts them, and to honor their struggles against things they should never have had to face. How hard people try, even in impossible situations, or when things go badly, or are out of their control. There's always a balance there though, of saying enough to fulfill that, but not more than you need to. Which is a very hard line to hit. I hope I've done it right.  
> Thank you again to everyone who reads. I appreciate all of you incredibly deeply, and it really means a lot to me. The next chapter should be up fairly soon.


	40. Nearly Departed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of Quentin's dream, everyone does their best to comes to terms with what's happened.

“I cannot believe there was _another_ Philip trial, and I _still,_ didn’t get to go,” said Meg, groaning and bumping her head back against the log she was sitting by, “Why does Dwight always get to go? And Claudette?”

“It’s not our fault,” said Claudette, looking overwhelmingly happy as she sat down by the campfire, a well-loved acoustic guitar in her lap.

“I would remind you getting the Wraith a lot has not _always_ worked out super well for us either,” added Dwight.

“You think the others will be back soon?” asked Claudette, running her hands over the smooth wood, “Kate’s going to be so excited—I can’t wait to show her.”

“I still can’t believe he _did_ that,” said Dwight.

“How long have they been gone?” asked Claudette.

“Forty-three minutes,” said Laurie.

The others hadn’t realized she was even listening to the conversation, and there was something off in her tone. Claudette looked up at her in surprise, and then concern. She was standing just past the circle of logs around the fireplace, arms folded around herself, alternating between pacing and holding perfectly still in ten second bursts. She looked worried. Really worried.

“That’s a little long,” said Dwight, tone much less light than it had been a minute ago, “I mean, I know we were gone a long time too—but, Philip. Who went?”

“David, Quentin, Kate,” said Laurie, not looking over.

“Is something wrong?” asked Claudette.

Laurie didn’t answer.

Adam looked from Laurie to Claudette, then over at Ace.

“She’s worried about Quentin,” answered Ace.

Confused and feeling a sense of dread slowly settle on her, Claudette looked back at Laurie. “Why? What happened?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Something’s been up with Quentin,” said Feng. She was laying on her back a little ways into the woods, legs draped over Nea, looking up at the sky. It had been a good day for her. Only one trial, and with Philip. They’d drawn straws and she had been the only one who didn’t get sacrificed. She felt a little bad about that, but it also meant that this was getting close to being the first twenty-four hours maybe since she’d gotten here that she hadn’t had to fight off claws, or feel a hook tear through her lung, or die. She hadn’t expected that to _ever_ happen again.

“Yeah?” asked Nea, propping herself up on her elbows to get a better look at Feng, “What do you mean?”

“He’s…” Feng thought about it and shrugged, which was a little hard to do laying on her back. “I don’t know—just like. Ever since that time with the Huntress, when I got him his necklace back? He’s been like…coming over to talk to me or hang out sometimes. Like, a lot more than usual. And he’s being nice to me. I mean, he’s always nice, but like, more than before.” The necklace thing was something she’d only told Nea about. It wasn’t like she really minded that he was doing this, but no one except Nea ever came over to hang out with her. It was weird. She turned her head and looked over at Nea. “Should I be worried about that?”

Nea blinked at her and got a funny look on her face. “Okay,” said Nea, sitting all the way up, “Let me get this straight. So, you did a nice thing for him once—like a super nice thing, and ever since then, he’s been hanging out with you when you’re not busy?”

Feng shrugged again, affirming the summary.

“Congratulations, Feng, you now have _two_ friends,” said Nea, a barely contained smirk on her face.

“What?” said Feng, “Quentin?”

“Yes, dumbass. You were nice to him and he appreciated it. He thinks you’re pals,” said Nea.

“Oh my god that makes so much sense,” said Feng, feeling like an idiot. _Why didn’t that even occur to me!_

“What the hell did you think was going on?” asked Nea.

“I don’t know,” said Feng mournfully, flushing, “I was afraid he thought I was nice.”

“Well, I mean, he might think that,” said Nea.

Feng covered her face with her hands. “I can’t do that—it’s too much responsibility.”

“What,” said Nea, “Being nice to one person?”

“No,” said Feng indignantly, “Two people—I’m nice to you.”

“Oh, come on,” said Nea with a grin, “It’s not that bad.”

“He’s gonna be so disappointed when he figures out I’m an asshole,” wailed Feng.

“You’re not an asshole,” said Nea, shaking her head and smiling, “Stop being so dramatic.”

There was an eruption of sound over by the campfire. Both girls looked over in surprise and confusion as one. They’d heard their fare share of bad news arrive in the group, but this was something else. This was something like neither of them had ever heard. It was hard to tell who, but one of the girls screamed Quentin’s name in a way that made Feng’s blood chill.

The girls met eyes and, without exchanging a word, shot to their feet and ran.

 

* * *

 

 

David burned into existence at the campfire on his hands and knees, his brain still reeling from what it had been conscious of in the explosion. He was vaguely aware of Kate appearing close by and loud worried sounds from his other friends, but he didn’t really take in anything except Quentin, who appeared on the ground about a foot in front of him. Moving the instant he had the ability, David was beside him before he had even really finished reforming at the campfire, desperate to see if he was alive. The body on the ground was in a bad way—his shirt and pants torn up and soaked with blood like his face, and even when he got close David couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

Heart thudding, David reached down to touch him, and Quentin opened his eyes with a gasp and tried to sit bolt upright, but didn’t make it and started to fall back, and David caught him. At the touch, Quentin looked up at him, expression terrified and disoriented, and then he recognized David’s face above him and grabbed onto David’s collar, his whole body shaking.

“David! David—don’t let me fall asleep!” he begged, panicked and confused, voice desperate, blood from his hands soaking into David’s jacket.

“I won’t,” said David, wrapping his arms around Quentin and holding him to his chest, trying to shield him and keep him steady and protected, feeling the smaller boy trembling against him and clinging to his shirt with a death grip. “Is okay, it’s over. You’re out. Is goin’ ta be okay.”

Against him, Quentin was breathing fast and shaking. He could hear the ragged breaths as the smaller boy shuddered against him. “He’s gone?” he heard Quentin ask from inside the jacket, voice weak and scared like he was afraid to believe it.

“You made it,” said David, never wanting to let go of him again.

“Quentin!” David recognized the voice as Claudette’s, and the was movement as someone skidded to their knees behind him, and then there was a hand on his shoulder. “How bad is he? David, set him down.”

He didn’t want to, but he knew she was right, and gently David did, lowering Quentin into the grass and letting go. As he moved back, David really took in for the first time just how hurt he was, and all the relief David had been feeling disappeared and he felt sick again. There was so much blood. There was too much blood, and he knew it.

“Quentin,” said Claudette, moving over him and taking in the wound on his stomach, “Talk to me, okay? How bad?”

David hadn’t noticed them get close, but as Claudette spoke, he realized everyone was around them, looking down at Quentin in various levels of worry and confusion and fear. Laurie had knelt on the grass opposite him, eyes big and face white as a sheet, and as Quentin blinked and slowly took in the faces around him, she tried to give him a reassuring smile. She looked so scared, though. David realized he probably looked exactly the same.

“I don’t know,” Quentin answered Claudette weakly, sounding like he was having a hard time thinking right. He looked so exhausted and pale, and his voice sounded weak and worn. “Everything hurts.”

Claudette’s eyes cut over to David for a second, and she looked as worried and sickened as he felt, but none of it was showing in her voice. She turned behind her to the others, and David noticed Kate standing a few feet back and watching with a look on her face like she was afraid to come closer.

“I need everything we have,” said Claudette to the group, “I need hemmorhagics and needle and thread and dressings. Something for the pain if you can find it, and clean water.” She paused for a second and her eyes scanned desperately through the crowd and picked out Jake. “And I need you to break a pair of scissors in half and sharpen one of the blades and get it back to me as fast as you can.”

Things were happening so fast and he was still trying to process so much that David didn’t know what that meant, but Jake seemed to immediately, and disappeared. The others scattered, and David remembered then his own stash. Quentin had traded him a whole pile of the best medical supplies just that morning for his best toolbox, and David suddenly felt very wrong about it—awful—like somehow accepting the trade had let him get this injured. He started to scramble to his feet to go get them.

“Wait, wait,” it was Quentin’s voice, scared and desperate, and he felt fingers slick with blood try to catch onto his and make him stay, and he stopped and looked.

“Don’t go,” said Quentin, clinging to his hand and looking up at him scared.

David felt sick. “Okay,” he said, sitting back down and taking the cold and bloody injured hand and wrapping it gently in his much larger one. “I got a medkit with a lot of hemmorhagics,” he called to the others, voice sounding a little more desperate than he’d meant to let on, “Is on top of the stack with my stuff—can someone get it?”

“I got it,” said Feng, who had been frozen a few feet behind Claudette, breaking her tableau and running full-tilt towards David’s chunk of camp.

“Can I get anyone who’s got a jacket?” called Claudette, doing her best to assess wounds, hands at Quentin’s stomach, keeping pressure on the wound, “I don’t want to do this in mud.”

David let go of Quentin’s hand with one of his and then the other and tore off his jacket, starting to hand it to Claudette before remembering her hands were busy. Laurie reached for it and he gave it to her as Ace knelt beside them and gave her his too, shirtless in the cold now.

“Can you get them under him?” asked Claudette.

Laurie nodded and looked down at Quentin. “Hey,” said Laurie, voice gentle and steady, “This is going to hurt a little. But you got this. Just hold on. David?”

David reached over and gently lifted Quentin up as Laurie tucked his jacked underneath, and then Ace’s under his leg’s as David lifted them. Quentin sucked in a sharp breath at the motion and David gave him a worried look.

“I’m…I’m okay,” said Quentin, voice weak and a little slurred, but catching the look and trying to reassure him. It was hard to believe, though. He was pale and shaking and drenched in blood, and as David watched he realized Quentin was struggling to keep his eyes open.

“Quentin,” said Claudette, voice steady, watching him carefully too, “I know you’re tired, but I need you to stay awake.”

 _He might fall asleep again?_ thought David in horror as several of the others stopped by Claudette, including Feng toting his own medkit. He hadn’t considered the possibility. “He can—” David started to ask before realizing it might be a bad idea to say that in front of Quentin.

Claudette looked over at him, her expression grave. “If you lose too much blood.”

 _You pass out,_ realized David, _And then you die._

“Don’t worry,” said Quentin weakly, “I am…never going to sleep again.”

David wasn’t sure if he believed that. Quentin was having a hard time focusing. He looked like he was drifting.

“I need you talk to me,” said Claudette, voice calm and level, “It’ll help you stay present.”

“Okay,” said Quentin, reaction time a little slow and struggling to keep his eyes open, “What…what do I…s-say?”

“Anything,” said Claudette, motioning for Adam to switch with her and keep pressure as she hurriedly sifted through supplies. Jake appeared behind her holding half a pair of scissors and she nodded at him and he set it down in an open kit at her side.

“…Uhm,” said Quentin, having a hard time, “I…I…” his eyes got wide then, and he looked over at David, worried. “K-Kate—is Kate okay? She—she was in trouble. I don’t see her. I-I tried to help her, but I didn’t. She…Is Kate?”

David nodded. “She’s fine. Right here.” He motioned in her direction with his head, and Kate inched forward close enough for him to be able to look up and see her. David glanced over at her and thought he’d never seen her look so bad. Like she was about a second from breaking down.

“You’re okay?” said Quentin, speech a little slurred as he blinked and struggled to keep his eyes open. He was already paler than he’d been when they’d arrived, and David was horribly aware of it. His skin was cold under David’s hand, and there was sweat on his forehead. His eyes were starting to look gaunt in his face.

“I’m okay,” answered Kate, choking up.

“I need someone to find a shot of adrenaline,” said Claudette, desperately trying to gauge the damage on various parts of his body. She stopped and looked around her, and for just a second she looked hunted and afraid, and then the composure that had been there before was back. “Okay. Here’s what we’re doing. I need more pairs of hands. Adam, I need you, and I need two more people who think they can handle medical stuff well here with me. Everyone else, I need that adrenaline fast. Then standby.”

While she spoke, Adam glanced over at Tapp, who came and knelt by David. Laurie looked at Adam and Tapp and nodded. _That’s three,_ thought David, feeling like he should get up to give them room, but Quentin was still clinging to his hand and when David shifted, he looked up at him with such a scared expression, David couldn’t make himself do it.

“Has anyone found something for the pain?” called Adam after the members of the group digging through medical supplies.

No one said yes. They kept digging.

“Okay,” said Claudette, holding up a pair of scissors and looking a little sickened and worried beneath her calm surface, “Quentin, I’m going to cut through your clothes to get to the wounds. It might hurt. You with me?”

Quentin nodded at her and took a shaky breath, trying to steel himself. Laurie took Quentin’s other hand and David started to squeeze the hand he was holding and then remembered it was injured and stopped, feeling useless and afraid.

Claudette took the scissors and cut through Quentin’s jeans, leaving him in his boxers as she moved bloody, torn fabric to get a look at the wound in his thigh. As the fabric moved and pulled against the wound, Quentin made a quiet, pained sound and closed his eyes for a second, breathing faster. Laurie shifted and stroked his head softly, trying to comfort him, her other hand still clasped around his fingers.

Hands working deftly, Claudette took a rag from Dwight, who was kneeling just behind her with a pile of open medical kits, cleared away a little of the blood and applied a hemmoragic, then started to suture the wound as Adam cut a line up Quentin’s t-shirt to get at the stomach wound while Tapp kept pressure on it.

As the needle dug in and out, Quentin shuddered and closed his eyes again. He had a thin layer of sweat all over and his skin was cold to the touch, which David knew was a very, very bad sign.

“Talk if ya can,” said David quietly, trying not to let the worry into his voice.

Slowly, Quentin opened his eyes and blinked at him. “David?” he asked, like he wasn’t sure.

 _Shite._ “Yeah, is me,” said David, smiling at him gently. “C’mon. You can no fall asleep. Talk to me about,” he didn’t now what about, “yer hobbies,” he offered after a beat, hoping that would work.

“My…?” said Quentin weakly, trying to keep his eyes open, “I did…uhm…”

“Music?” offered Laurie, giving David a worried look.

“…no…I can’t play,” said Quentin in a vacant way, like he wasn’t fully aware of what he was saying, “…I…uh…draw a-a little, but I’m…not…good. …I s-swim, and—ah!” he’d started to shift his weight a little to look over at Laurie, but something in the motion hurt him and he cried out in pain and looked a little more awake for a second, breathing harder.

“What happened?” asked Claudette, looking up from her work.

David looked down and knew immediately from experience. “Shoulder’s dislocated,” he answered.

“I’m sorry,” said Claudette to Quentin, “It’s going to be a minute before we can set it.”

“Four puncture wounds in the stomach,” said Adam to Claudette, voice level but grim, “Pretty deep.”

“Can you tell if he hit an organ?” asked Claudette, eyes still on the thigh wound.

“No,” said Adam.

 “Okay,” said Claudette, cutting loose the thread as she finished the suture, “Switch with me. Bandage it quick, if you can. And his calf. For now, we really need to stop the bleeding.”

David wasn’t sure Quentin heard her. Heard any of them. He was blinking and staring past David at nothing, at the sky, trying to focus.

 “I can do the calf,” said Feng, voice small. David hadn’t even seen that she was still back there behind Claudette.

“Adrenaline,” said Meg, sliding to a stop over Claudette and handing it over.

Adam swapped with Claudette and moved to Quentin’s thigh, and Claudette nodded at Feng and then Meg and took the syringe and turned back to Quentin. She took in his stomach with a look of dread on her face. There were small cuts all over, but what was really worrying were the wounds Adam had described. Four deep punctures in his stomach. _God, they’re bleeding so much_. The sight made David sick. Quentin already looked like he’d lost too much. He was having a harder and harder time keeping his eyes open, and his breath had gone from panicked and shallow to weak and slow. Ungodly pale. Watching Claudette, David could see on her face that she thought so too.

“Quentin,” said Claudette, picking up the half pair of scissors she’d gotten from Jake with a shaky hand, “We can’t tell if you’re bleeding internally. I’m going to have to cut you open and see. We…You have to stay awake; we can’t put you under. Can you do it?”

David could tell that the thought scared him, but Quentin nodded, and he gripped David’s hand, blood dripping from it.

“I’m going to need someone to help me keep the wound open while I look, and people to hold him down,” said Claudette, “Probably four. Shoulders and legs.”

It was barely audible, but David hear Quentin whimper when she said that, and when he looked at him there was a pained look on his face.

“I’ll help,” said Jake, moving to the shoulder opposite David and kneeling. “Here,” said Jake, undoing his belt and holding it up, “Use this to bite down on so you don’t bite through your tongue. It’s going to hurt like hell, but you can get through it. Focus on something else. Pick a memory. Something good, and interesting, and short. Couple seconds at most. Replay it. Go there in your head, and watch it over and over and over, and stay with it. It’ll help you tune this out.”

As he spoke, Tapp moved to hold down one leg and Kate knelt down and got ready to hold down the other, and Adam shifted to help Claudette with the wound. Jake held the belt out for Quentin to bite down on, and he did, breathing a little faster and a little more awake.

“Gentle,” said David to Jake, “That shoulder’s the dislocated one.”

“I’ll try to stay by his ribcage,” answered Jake with a nod.

“Hey,” said David gently to Quentin, “I got to let go for a second ‘n hold ya down, but I’m right here, yeah?”

Face pale and drawn and scared, Quentin nodded. David let go of his hand and readied himself.

“Okay, I’m going to go as fast as I can without hurting you,” said Claudette, “Just stay with me.”

She readied the scissor blade like a scalpel over his stomach, took a breath, and sliced into him.

Quentin made a choked sound and bit down onto the belt, closing his eyes and breathing fast.

Claudette kept going, a long thin line from the first puncture to the last, and then she turned to Adam and he moved and peeled back the soft skin of his stomach, opening up his abdomen so she could see the intestines inside, and David turned his head away, trying not to vomit at the sight. As Adam moved back his skin, Quentin’ shuddered and closed his eyes, body starting to twitch.

“Hang on,” said Laurie still holding tight to Quentin’s hand.

By his stomach, Claudette reached inside him and started to sift through things, and Quentin screamed through the belt and started to pitch weakly. David, Tapp, Jake, and Kate, held him down as he weakly thrashed against them, and David felt awful. There was no choice, but he was hurting him, and Quentin was already so far past his breaking point.

“Okay,” said Claudette finally, after what couldn’t have been very long at all but felt like an eternity to David, “I’m—I’m done, I just have to close it.”

Adam let go of Quentin’s stomach and the boy shuddered again and whimpered as his friends held him down and Claudette began to suture the wound shut.

“It’s good,” said Claudette to Quentin, voice shaking a little, “You aren’t bleeding internally.”

 _Thank god,_ thought David, looking down at Quentin’s ashy face as he breathed weakly beneath him, _Means he’ll live, right?_

But he didn’t look like it. He was so cold now, so pale.

 _That’s not fair,_ thought David, _He can no die after this._

Adam was watching Quentin’s face with worry as Claudette sewed him shut, and he picked up the shot of adrenaline.

“He’s too worn out,” said Adam quietly to Claudette, “We should try this.”

“I haven’t done that before,” said Claudette, trying to stop her hands from shaking as she finished the sutures in his stomach.

“I have,” said Tapp, holding out a hand, “Give it to me.”

Adam passed the syringe to Tapp, and he knelt beside Quentin. His face was covered in blood from the myriad of cuts and gashes across it, but the skin David could still see was pale, and Quentin’s eyes were shut, and he was breathing only faintly now. Tapp raised the needle above Quentin’s heart.

“Wait—wait!” said Adam, “Don’t do it there. We don’t want less bloodflow in the heart. He might already be in shock—do it in the abdomen. Just above the wound.”

Claudette paused momentarily in her work and Tapp shifted, looked to Adam for confirmation, and brought the needle down into Quentin’s stomach and emptied the syringe.

Almost immediately, Quentin’s eyes opened and he gasped and tried to jolt up like he had when he’d first appeared by the fire, but David and Jake held him down, trying to keep him from injuring himself worse. He was awake, but he looked confused and in pain and he looked down at his torso in surprise and fear and choked out a pained sound as he took in the needle and the blood all over his stomach.

“Almost done,” said Tapp reassuringly, pulling the syringe back out.

Quentin flinched and gritted his teeth against the belt at the motion, breathing hard and shakily, and he looked around the group at the people about him like he was confused by their presence—like he’d forgotten.

“Okay, I got it,” said Claudette hurriedly, tying off the thread and picking up her hands and moving back from Quentin’s stomach like she was afraid that even light contact was going to hurt him more than he could take.

Jake let go of Quentin and removed the belt.

“It’s over?” asked Quentin weakly, looking from Jake, to Tapp, to Laurie.

“No more cutting you up,” confirmed Laurie, holding tight to his hand.

Quentin swallowed hard and nodded, shaking a little and looking sick and weak, but more awake now.

“We need to bandage things and stop the rest of the bleeding,” said Claudette to the others, “We’ve got a lot of surgical tape—try to use that on his face and neck if you can. I don’t want to hurt him worse by suturing unless we have to.”

“His hand’s cut up too,” said David, moving back to where he’d been before and gently taking the smaller hand in his again and looking down at it.

“Deep upper arm puncture, lot of small cuts on his chest and outer arms, and looks like he’s bleeding from the back of his head too,” added Tapp.

“We should set the shoulder when we can,” said Jake, looking over at Claudette with a grim expression, “It’s not gonna make him bleed, but it hurts like hell.”

“Bleeding first,” said Claudette, already handing out tape and thread and strips of gauze.

People took whatever was closest to them and worked. David was aware of the others, but not very, his focus on the hand he’d ended up with.

He felt so useless, and big, and too clunky. David wasn’t even really supposed to be here—he wasn’t one of the better people at this kind of thing. The cuts in Quentin’s hand were such a small thing compared with everything else. All the dangerous things. But it felt like so much. One long cut that ran from his thumb pad up his index finger, another starting halfway down the palm and running up half the length of his middle finger, and then a little slice out of the tip of his ring finger. It wasn’t bad. David had been cut up a fair number of times in his life, even before coming here, but the long red slits felt crucial, and he was so afraid of messing it up. Quentin looked so bad, and so weak. They were doing everything that they could, but the jackets beneath him were covered in blood, and David still remembered how large the pool had grown around him on the bathroom floor. He couldn’t have that much left, and David was as gentle as he could be wrapping bandages around his fingers, afraid to lose even a drop more than had to go.

When he finished with the hand, he let go of it to take some bandages from Laurie and help her with the little cuts all over Quentin’s chest, but he felt Quentin’s fingers lock around his sleeve and looked down to see the same scared expression as before, only weaker, and he took the hand and held it again. Quentin locked his fingers around David’s and smiled at him weakly, then tilted his head up and looked at the sky, trying not to see what people were doing, not to see all of the blood and the mass of cuts up and down his bare chest.

David’s eyes stayed on him for a second, feeling sickened and afraid, almost broken. One of them had wiped off Quentin’s face before taping the cuts on his face shut, and David could see now for real how ghostly pale he was. It was cold, even by the campfire, but Quentin was soaked in sweat, and he was breathing fast—so fast David would have usually assumed he was afraid, but it was too quick even for that, and too regular. No variation. Like it just took that much effort and speed to keep breathing. But it didn’t seem to be helping him stay awake or present, even with the shot of adrenaline.

Laurie was watching too, and she saw David looking and met his eyes. _She thinks he’s gon ta die,_ realized David. And then, even worse, he realized that was what he thought.

 _No,_ thought David, looking down at the hand he was holding, _I can no live with that. He has to live._

Across from him, Claudette looked up from the puncture wound in his arm she’d been dressing and David saw it in her face too. He looked at Adam, and then Tapp, and finally Feng, down by his feet, and realized they all knew it.

“How’re you feelin’?” he asked Quentin, looking down at his friend and trying to stay off the inevitable.

“I’ve been better,” said Quentin weakly, a little unfocused, but finding David’s face after a second and smiling up at him.

David tried to smile back and felt his eyes well up. _You can no do that. You can no let him know. He shouldn’t have to know._

“Not falling asleep?” asked Claudette, trying to sound calm and optimistic and close to doing it.

“No,” said Quentin, voice tired and thin. He looked over at her and watched her for a few seconds, then looked around him at all of them slowly, lingering on each for a few seconds and taking in their faces.

David kept applying little bandages to small cuts that were barely bleeding, watching Quentin, trying to find something to prove himself wrong. As he looked from person to person, Quentin settled on David for a second and their eyes met and David noticed with a sick feeling that his lips were starting to turn blue.

Finishing his slow studying of the group, Quentin turned his head back towards Claudette. She paused and glanced down at him when she felt his eyes on her.

“Hey,” said Quentin, looking up at her and smiling weakly, “It’s okay, you know.”

“What’s okay?” said Claudette.

“If you can’t—,” he stopped and changed his word choice, “If I don’t make it.”

 _Do no say that,_ thought David, choking on the urge to cry. _No after all this._

“You’re not going to die,” said Claudette, her voice a little shaky for the first time.

“It doesn’t hurt,” said Quentin, still smiling at her, “I’m okay. Really. It’s not a bad way to go.”

“I won’t let that happen,” said Claudette, “It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna save you.”

“You already did,” said Quentin, still smiling at her, breath getting weaker, “I’m out. I’m with all my friends, and I’m safe, and I’m not alone. It’s okay to die like this.”

“I don’t accept that,” said Claudette, eyes welling up, “I won’t let you die.”

“I love you guys,” said Quentin, smiling at her and then the other people he could see. Laurie was crying silently, and he saw and tightened his weak grip on her hand. “Please don’t be so sad. You saved me. And you guys were everything to me,” said Quentin.

“No, please don’t die,” said Feng voice quiet and choked, crying too, “I only just got you as a friend. Don’t leave me.”

It took Quentin a second to find her in the group, but he did, and he smiled at her. “I won’t. Not for real. You’ll remember.” He looked at David. “And I’ll see you again someday.”

Tears slid down David’s face and he shook his head at him. “No, tha’s too long,” said David, “You can no give up like this.”

“Hey,” said Laurie softly, reaching over and stroking Quentin’s head gently, “We love you too, okay?”

He turned his head to look at her and nodded.

Claudette was crying silently too now, and she looked at Adam. He shook his head at her. “We have to try,” she said to him, voice almost a whisper.

“He needs blood,” said Jake, face paler than usual and expression hard to read.

Looking around her at the sea of hopeless, heartbroken expressions, Claudette shook her head, crying and desperate. “No. We can’t just give up. We did everything right.”

“He’s lost more than forty percent,” said Tapp quietly to her, voice calm and gentle and understanding, but final, “He can’t recover. And he doesn’t have long. Make sure you spend the rest of your time how you won’t regret.”

Quentin looked from Tapp to Claudette and weakly reached out a hand for her, letting go of Laurie’s as she stroked his head. “It’s okay,” he said again. He was clammy and pale and struggling to keep his eyes open, but he looked peaceful. David wished that made him feel like this was going to be okay.

Gently, Claudette took the hand and closed her fingers around it. “It’s not okay,” she said, choking on emotion as tears ran down her face, “Who am I gonna go to school with?”

He smiled at her. “Guess it’s botany after all.”

“I’m sorry,” said Kate, looking devastated and heartbroken beside David, “We didn’t get you in time. And you came to save me.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Quentin, looking worried and like it was vitally important to him that she didn’t, “I messed up, not you. And you got me back here. Thank you.”

“Please don’t die,” said Claudette, voice a whisper, holding onto his hand, “I’ll miss you forever.”

“I don’t want to,” answered Quentin, “But I don’t think I have a choice. It’ll be okay, I promise. I’ll see you guys again.”

Quentin believed it, and that hurt David to his core, because he wasn’t sure if he did, and the lack of proof and hope made him empty and broken and it was worse. It was worse than he’d ever felt failing someone before, because he knew him more and loved him more, and he couldn’t even be sure if the thing his friend was finding so much peace and comfort in was true, and he wanted it to be more than he’d ever wanted anything, but he couldn’t make it true, and he couldn’t know for sure, and that was desolate. And unforgiving. And David wasn’t sure he was strong enough to bear the weight. _If there is a god out there,_ prayed David silently, _I have no seen much proof these past few years, but please be real. He believes in ya so much, it would no be fair to leave him alone like this. Is too much. There has to be some good in the world that would no let that happen._

“I can’t,” whispered Claudette, shaking her head, “I can’t let you die.” Something occurred to her and she looked up at the rest of the group desperately. “We—could try!”

A few of the others looked at her, but not with optimism or readiness to follow orders. Dread and mourning and maybe a few with pieces of fragile hope and denial and desperation.

“We don’t have equipment, but we have syringes,” said Claudette, looking at the people around her, “We can try—we have to try! I—I need pieces of glass, and—and someone to get me the best magnifying lenses we have for flashlights, and maps—”

Meg and Ace looked at each other and went immediately, and Feng looked up at them in surprise, expression heartbroken, and then followed quickly.

“We can get blood from everyone,” said Claudette, going fast, stumbling over herself, “And—and maybe if we get blood on the slides under a lens we can see if they mix and we can find a type that matches—there’s twelve of us, one of us has to be a match—we can—”

“I’m a universal donor,” said Dwight immediately, face tear-streaked and expression as desperate and set and painfully hopeful as hers, like trying to believe in the possibility physically hurt.

“Y-you’re sure?” asked Claudette. “If we give him the wrong kind, he dies.”

“I’m positive,” said Dwight, and with assurance so strong David believed him immediately. “I donated a couple times in college and Red Cross harassed me forever after that and, I…was a selfish asshole and complained about the Red Cross instead of donating,” finished Dwight, losing energy but not speed as he spoke, “But the point is I’m sure.”

“You’ll be—” started Jake, and then he stopped.

“I’ve got head trauma, not blood loss,” said Dwight, “Let’s do it.”

“We don’t have supplies for that,” said Adam gently.

“No,” said Claudette, refusing to give up, “It’s doable,” and then much louder to the people digging through supplies, “Forget the lenses—everyone who can, find every syringe we have. Bring them here. Someone mix a pot of water with salt. Empty any syringe that already has something in it and rinse it out in the saltwater. I need a full count of how many we have, and I need it now.”

People looked generally unsure and hopeless, but almost everyone took off.

“How fast does blood coagulate?” asked Claudette, turning back to Adam, face tense and desperate.

“25-30 seconds, give or take,” answered Adam, not convinced, but taking her seriously.

“Okay. So, if we use each syringe for 22 seconds to be safe, how many times can we draw and empty blood? Dwight, time me,” she said, making the motion against her own arm like she had a syringe, trying to time it out.

“That’s 22,” said Dwight after a few seconds, “How many did you get?”

“Three,” said Claudette.

“If we say five milliliters per syringe, three reps each, that’s fifteen milliliters before switching, under the best possible circumstances,” said Adam, “But you have to be careful doing something like that. He’d need at least a pint to stabilize him. Trying something like this, instead of switching back and forth, it’d be just as well to have a line, one person drawing and passing to another who gives the new blood, then passes off used syringes to someone to clean out with saline, and then take the cleaned syringe back in rotation to be used again.” He looked thoughtful for a second, thinking hard. “How many times do you think you could carefully administer a shot in thirty seconds if that was all you were doing?” he asked, voice serious and intent, almost hopeful.

Dwight timed her and she ran through the motion while David watched as he and Laurie finished on the last of the cuts, afraid to hope himself, but doing it anyway. Beside him, Quentin was watching too, but he was struggling to keep his eyes open again.

“That’s about eleven,” said Claudette as Dwight stopped her.

“You’ll have overestimated just a little without a real needle,” said Adam.

“Okay, let’s say eight, to be fair,” said Dwight, not looking hopeful.

 “Okay—t-that’s not much, I know,” said Claudette, “but both arms work, right? Ten of us. We could double up. Two with Dwight, two with Quentin; that leaves eight for cleaning out syringes and passing them from station to station.”

“Okay, so sixteen every thirty seconds,” said Dwight, running calculations in his head, “32 a minute. Five to three milliliters per syringe, so let’s say four. About 500 milliliters in a pint of blood. 128 milliliters of new blood a minute. That’s almost—”

“Four minutes to get a pint of blood,” finished Laurie with him, looking hopeful and terrified at the same time.

“We can do that,” said Adam definitively, turning back to Claudette, “We can try.”

“Quentin,” said Claudette, holding his hand and meeting his eyes, voice like the iron-clad will of god, “You’re not allowed to die. Stay awake.”

“Okay,” he answered weakly, “I’ll do my best.”

Claudette squeezed his hand. “Then I know we’ll make it.”

Everything around David was a blur as Claudette and Adam passed instructions on to other people and they came back with what supplies they had, yet he could still feel time ticking away like his own heartbeat was the second hand on a clock. _Only a matter of time._

He didn’t want to think about that, or about missing a last chance he hadn’t even known they had.

Between them and their hoarded supplies over the years, they had twenty-seven needles good enough to use. That meant thirteen in rotation for each pair. People were going to have to quick about getting things washed and ready to go again. David wouldn’t have considered that if it had been him—he’d have just gone again and again with the same syringe, praying for the best, if the idea to try that had even occurred to him at all. Everything that was happening, it was hard for David to focus on any one fact or emotion aside from worry, but in a vague sort of way it occurred to him in the back of his mind that it was incredible the knowledge other people had. Claudette not just coming up with something like this, but knowing to consider blood clots in a needle, and working through a way to fix that, too. Halfway to a plan to find a matching blood type before Dwight had solved the problem for her. It was the reason everyone was listening to her. Not just desperation to save a friend, but faith in her knowledge and abilities. _An determination,_ thought David, glancing over at her. She had a look on her face like death was going to have to pry Quentin away from her cold dead fingers to get at him.

Adam broke them into two sets like an assembly line. Jake and Tapp drawing from Dwight, Adam and Claudette injecting into Quentin, Feng and David passing between the sets so each could concentrate entirely on their job. Nea would take the used needles to Ace and Kate, who would clean them out and gave them to Meg to get back to Jake and Tapp for use again, with Laurie watching the clock and helping anyone who fell behind, but starting with Nea until that happened.

“I’ll be close,” said David, putting his hand on Quentin’s shoulder before letting go.

Quentin nodded and smiled at him. _God, he’s pale,_ thought David with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he stood up to move to his spot. _Like a corpse._

Dwight lay down beside Quentin and Jake and Tapp got into position and prepped him, readied needles in their hands. Dwight took a breath and leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

“Sorry, but this is going to hurt a little,” said Claudette to Quentin, taking in the long line of needles ready to be cycled through as soon as someone said go.

“Claudette,” said Quentin with a tired smile, face almost completely drained of color, “I’m not gonna feel that. Not over everything else. It’s just needles.”

“Well, I am,” said Dwight, eyes still closed, “Because I’m a huge wuss and don’t like needles. Let’s do it.”

“Alright,” said Adam, “Everyone ready?”

He looked around the group. Solemn, tense faces nodded affirmation.

Adam took a breath. “Go.”

The activity was frantic.

David felt like he was basically doing nothing, but even he didn’t have a second to hesitate or stay still. Tapp and Jake drew blood from Dwight’s arms as he closed his eyes and took it, and then in a tense mixture of care and underlying franticness, passed the syringes to him and Feng, who got the blood to Adam and Claudette. Behind him, David was vaguely aware of the sounds of the others moving and doing their jobs—cleaning out blood, rotating, brining the used ones back fresh, but all he really had time to focus on was what was before him. Tapp, Dwight, the sight of blood filling a syringe, the needle leaving skin, and then it was Claudette, the needle going in, watching the red disappear into Quentin’s arms, occasionally stealing a half-second look at his face and praying to see color in it again, and then back to Tapp. Unending, almost silent, rhythmic group desperation. Four minutes had never felt like it could be so long a time.

Partway through, Laurie ran past him, and David thought maybe it was over—and they’d done it, because it had already felt like so much longer than four minutes to him, but she’d fallen to her knees beside Quentin and David had realized then that his eyes were closed, and almost stabbed Claudette in the hand as he passed her a new syringe of blood. The frantic motion kept on, no one else in the group speaking, but all of them hearing Laurie as she tried to bring him back.

“Hey—hey, come on. Quentin, wake up. We’re close, you promised to try.” Her voice was reassuring, but loud and strong, trying to rouse him. “You can’t fall asleep on us here. Just give me a minute. Just one more minute, okay?”

David stole a look and saw Quentin’s chest moving weakly, but his eyes still closed. For a horrible second there was nothing.

“Do you need me to make it two?” asked Quentin groggily, cracking a weak smile and opening his eyelids slivers to see her.

“I would appreciate that,” said Laurie, stroking his head again as the rest of them kept on, trying to look at their work and not their dying friend—trying not to mess up. “Favorite band?” asked Laurie. She had to have already known the answer. David had heard her talk to him about this before.

“Joy Division, The Clash, and…m-maybe Echo & the Bunnymen,” he answered quietly.

“I don’t know that last one—are they all British bands?” asked Laurie.

“Yeah,” said Quentin.

“Didn’t like any of ours as much?” asked Laurie, voice friendly and gentle.

“No, it’s not…We just…didn’t have as much. I like our other genres,” said Quentin weakly.

“I guess I can’t talk,” said Laurie, “Favorite animal?”

“That’s too hard,” said Quentin, closing his eyes for a second and then blinking and forcing them open again.

“Okay. You used to swim?” prompted Laurie, immediately picking up a new topic.

David passed another syringe to Claudette, trying to focus, leaning over Feng on his way. She looked as distracted and worried as him, taught and ready to snap under the pressure.

“Yeah,” replied Quentin, voice weak.

“Competitively?” asked Laurie.

“For school,” said Quentin. His voice was a little out of it, and tired, but at least it was constant proof he was alive.

“Oh?” said Laurie, “What stroke?”

“All of them, but I was best at backstroke,” said Quentin quietly. He looked up at her, trying to focus. “Is it working?”

As he passed another syringe over, David glanced up and saw Laurie looking over at Claudette and Adam, trying to learn the answer. She didn’t seem to get one.

“Yeah,” said Laurie, looking back down at Quentin, “We’re almost there.”

“Cool,” said Quentin, closing his eyes again and breathing slowly.

“No, you can’t fall asleep,” said Laurie gently, poking his shoulder.

“Can I shut my eyes?” asked Quentin sadly, sounding raggedly weak.

“Can you shut them and not fall asleep?” asked Laurie.

“No,” said Quentin quietly, sounding defeated. He forced them open again.

The rest of them kept going as Laurie talked to him, doing everything in her power to force him to stay up. Even able to hear Quentin’s short replies to her questions, David kept having to make himself look to assure himself he wasn’t dead. It felt for so long like nothing at all was happening, despite all their efforts, and then David took one of his stolen glances in a second of waiting for Tapp, and Quentin’s lips weren’t blue anymore. He was pale, but like someone dying, not like someone already dead. And that was better. That was real hope. Finally. They all kept going, on and on, and then, after what felt like an eternity, David heard Adam say, “that’s a pint.”

Everyone heard it. They all stopped and traded looks, Kate and Ace with their hands in salty water, mid-rinse with syringes, Jake with a full syringe of Dwight’s blood.

“Don’t stop,” reprimanded Adam sternly, motioning to the others, “He’s maybe stable, but if so, barely. Dwight, we’re going to take another half a pint to be safe. You’re going to feel a little sick after this.”

“Cool,” said Dwight, voice worn out, eyes shut, and a grimace on his face, “Go for it.”

They kept going fast, cycle, cycle, rinse-repeat. Dwight started to look a little less good, and Quentin started to look better, until finally Adam help up a hand and called out for them to stop.

“That’s a little over another half now,” said Adam.

“Did—did we do it?” asked Feng, pausing beside David and glancing at the people around her for confirmation, “He’s not gonna die?”

Adam moved his hand down to Quentin’s wrist and checked his pulse, eyes on the boy’s drawn face. He looked so much better. Sweating less, his lips weren’t blue, there was some color back in his skin, and he looked at least mostly awake and alert, watching them.

 _We did?_ hoped David, looking from Adam to Claudette for the same confirmation Feng had asked for.

“How do you feel?” Adam asked Quentin, hand still on his pulse.

“A lot better,” said Quentin, voice worn, but less weak. “I think not like I’m going to die.”

Adam nodded and let go. “He’s stable.”

It passed through them like a shockwave. Opposite him, David saw a grin appear on Laurie’s face and her shoulders slump as the tension went out of them, and she reached down and put a hand on Quentin’s good shoulder. Meg cheered and then there were other voices with her—David wasn’t sure who all, except that Dwight was one of them. Beside him, Feng dropped onto the ground and sat there, looking like she’d been smacked by a truck. Claudette put her bloody hands over her face and curled up on the ground.

 _We did it,_ David realized slower than the rest of them, _He is no goin’ ta die. No now, anyway. He made it._

The happiness and relief almost bowled him over, and David picked up Claudette’s balled form from the ground and wrapped his arms around her, spinning her in the air. “Girl, you’re a marvel!” he said, lifting her up and holding her over his head while she looked back at him in shock and then laughed.

“Yeah she is!” said Meg, snagging her from behind the second David sat her down and wrapping her arms around her shoulders, “The best ever!” She jumped up and locked her legs around Claudette’s waist and they both fell over backwards as Claudette lost her balance, hitting the ground and laughing.

“An you,” said David, turning to Adam, “I could kiss ya—I will no, because I saw the look on yer face when ah said that, but I could,” he added, holding up a finger.

Adam smiled and shook his head. “It was all her,” he said, gesturing back at Claudette.

“Thank you for not dying,” said Feng from where she’d fallen into the grass, face still pale and looking happy but a little shaky.

Quentin smiled at her and nodded.

“Is he okay enough I can hug him?” asked Meg, taking a step towards him.

“Wait—wait,” said Quentin in a panic, “Can someone set my shoulder before she does that?”

She was notoriously forceful.

“Aye,” said David, moving over, “I can—I’ve done it before, and is no so bad.”

“Thanks,” said Quentin as he knelt beside him.

“I’m go’n ta move yer arm, an it’s gon ta hurt a bit,” said David, “But try no ta fight me.”

Quentin nodded and then grimaced as David started to move the arm, sucking in a pained breath.

“Is quick when it goes back in,” said David encouragingly.

“How,” asked Quentin like something had just occurred to him. He paused to bite down on his lip as the muscle David was moving hurt him, “How did you know? That I was in trouble?”

David glanced up at Laurie. “She told me.”

Following the glance, Quentin looked up at Laurie where she knelt behind him. “H…how?” he asked, wincing again as the arm moved, “How did you have time?”

He choked out a pained sound then as the shoulder went back into its socket, and let out a breath.

“See?” said David, “No so bad once it happens. An the girl only had about six seconds as we were disappearin’, but she made ‘em count. Probably got her ta thank you’re alive.”

Quentin looked up at Laurie like he didn’t know what to say.

“Can you prop me up?” he asked David.

David glanced over at Adam and Claudette.

“Be very careful,” said Adam, “He’s got a lot of stitches we don’t want to mess up.”

As gently as he could, David lifted Quentin up a little, helping to keep him upright. Quentin reached out his arms for Laurie and she accepted the hug gingerly, careful of his stomach stitches and the cuts all over him. Even so, it had to have hurt, but Quentin didn’t seem to mind, arms wrapped around her and head against her shoulder.

For a long time, David didn’t hear him say anything, he just stayed there, holding onto her, and then he heard him whisper, “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

 

“How are you doing?” asked Claudette gently.

It had been hard to pry her away at all, but when they’d finished, Adam had insisted she leave Quentin with someone else at least long enough to help him answer questions about the situation for the rest of the group privately and get the blood off her hands, and there had been sense in that—at least the blood part, so she’d reluctantly gone.

Everything about today felt foggy and muddled in her head, even though it had just happened. She still only half had a grasp on what had happened at all. David had said the Clown drugged them all and put Quentin under on purpose so the Nightmare would be able to get at him, then hurt the rest of them, and that they’d managed to blow all of themselves up. That was brass tacks details only, and she needed to know—wanted to know—what her friends had been through. But at the same time, she didn’t want to leave Quentin alone at all. He was probably getting tired of being leaned over by her like a watchdog, but it was hard. She was having a rough time even believing he was still alive, and she still felt shaky and afraid from what had almost happened, and she needed to be there—be present, as much as possible, to make sure things didn’t change.

It had been so close, and she was thankful and amazed and frankly still adjusting to the factuality of it all, but at the same time, it scared her. A few more seconds in the trial, a stab wound a few inches up and to the right, a little longer to get their plan going, the time it would have taken to find a blood match if she hadn’t had Dwight. So many little things could have meant today would have been very, very different. Like a coin toss. And she didn’t like that. She didn’t know how Ace could live like this and love it—depending on luck to get you through. It was scary to have no certainty—to be at the mercy of something like chance—because why would chance show mercy when nothing else ever did?

Quentin had gotten some color back in his skin, but he was still pale and weak looking, and carved up all over. The cuts on his face were fairly thin, which was a mercy, but she could tell they were going to scar. _Everything_ was going to scar.

 _And what’s to stop this from happening again?_ she wondered, _What happens next time he’s in a trial with the Clown? That can only be, what, a couple of weeks? If he gets unlucky, a couple days? We don’t have any safety net. He’s so bad off, he wouldn’t last five minutes in a dream if he goes under again. What do we do next time?_

They’d barely made _this_ time. Next time was unthinkable. So out of control, like an abyss, hanging just at the edge of her vision. Not here yet, but in sight, unrelenting, waiting.

“Better,” answered Quentin, smiling at her. He still looked and sounded exhausted, but a lot better than he had. A couple of them had picked him up and moved him closer to the fire where he would be warmer and they could prop him up against one of the logs with some of the coats and clothes that weren’t blood-logged draped against it as a cushion to lean against.

“Good,” said Claudette, sitting down with him, “That’s what I want to hear.”

“Sorry about,” Quentin waved an arm in a weak, vague motion, “All this. I really did a number on everyone, huh?”

“Don’t even,” said Claudette, shaking her head at him, “You scared us all to death, but you don’t get to feel bad about it. I’m so tired of everyone I care about feeling bad about things that aren’t their fault.”

“Well,” said Quentin, only half-acknowledging, “I should have told you. Given people some kind of warning.”

“Yeah, you shoulda,” agreed Claudette, tucking her knees up to her chest and lightly bumping him with her shoulder, “But I think you already learned that lesson.”

He smiled and looked into the fire for a few seconds, and then past it to the others beyond, doing their best to get blood out of jackets and put things back in medkits, some talking, most glancing in his direction every few seconds. Once they’d gotten blood into him, everyone had wanted to stay close and make sure he was okay, and awake, and to talk with him, but Jake had made them split off and leave only a couple at a time with him at most—insisting out of Quentin’s hearing that he needed some room to breathe and they needed to give him a little time before crowding him again.

“Thank you,” said Quentin after a second of watching the others, looking back at her, “I mean that—really. For not giving up.”

“Of course,” said Claudette. _Of course. I would never do that. Giving up isn’t an option._ _Not on any of you._

“You’re crazy, you know that?” said Quentin with a smile.

“I’m crazy?” asked Claudette.

“Yeah, you’re crazy,” he confirmed, “I was dead to rights with no way out, and then you…” he gestured again, no words, and still having a little bit of a hard time thinking through the exhaustion and damage, “Nobody would think of that—that stunt you just pulled off?—it’s, it’s…I don’t even know. It’s impossible—or, almost. It’s crazy. You’re crazy,” he repeated, grinning at her, voice tired and weak but happy, “Good crazy. The best. I mean…” he let out a slow breath and shook his head like he still couldn’t really believe it, “You’re something else, you know that? I—I officially surrender my position as co-support unit. I’m definitely the subordinate one. You’re the champion of all that crazy, wild, absolutely insane medical genius stuff.”

She grinned, feeling embarrassed and proud at the same time. “I didn’t do anything that good. I think all I did was take science back like 400 years.”

“Well, it impressed me,” said Quentin, “I think you’d have made a great...alchemist, witch, physician person.”

“Thanks,” said Claudette, smiling back, “I always wanted to be an alchemist witch when I was little.”

That made him laugh a little, and she did too. It felt so good to be able to do that. They sat there in companionable silence for a minute, looking into the fire and feeling better.

_It’s so weird to think you were almost dead two hours ago. I’m talking to you like everything’s normal, and I almost never got to talk to you again._

The thought was a horrible one, and she couldn’t bear it. And what about next time? Because there would be a next time, sooner or later. No matter what. There _would_ be a next time…

She looked over at him and took in the bandaged and taped gashes, what she could see of the shredded, bloody clothes beneath his jacket, which she’d given back to him to use like a blanket. Things were always rough and terrible and she’d made herself get used to that, but this was different. She wanted to believe it was the same, because that would mean it could be routine, and something overcomable, but she couldn’t. In this moment, he looked so peaceful, and alive, and so much better. Like okay might actually be an option someday. But that wasn’t real, was it?

Turning back to the fire, she let the silence linger for a moment, thinking, trying to promise herself things would be alright. Or even go back to the kind of bad they’d been before. But the anxiety ate at and overwhelmed her as she watched the firelight flickering to keep back the shadows. Struggling.

“Are we gonna be okay?” asked Claudette after a second, looking back at Quentin. She knew she shouldn’t have asked him that, but she needed to know.

“We will,” said Quentin, smile only a little sad and expression sincere as he met her eyes and looked back, “I meant what I said before. Even if I end up dead, you guys’ll be okay. So will I.”

“I’m only gonna be okay if everyone lives and we all go home,” said Claudette, feeling the sentiment in her bones as she did. It was the promise of that kind of future that kept her going—really the only thing that kept her going. Everything in the fog had been awful since the second she’d arrived, but for the first time ever, she felt like breaking. Well and truly. Facing a threat she’d denied before. _We have to. We all have to. We have to go home._

Quentin watched her for a second, thinking, a little troubled. “Listen,” he said after a moment, “I…I know it isn’t the same for you as it is for me, but I don’t want you to give up because you feel like things are never gonna be okay.”

She looked over at him and listened, not sure what he meant.

“This place,” said Quentin, firelight against the gashes along his face making him look older and more seasoned and worn than she was used to seeing him, “Everything that’s happened to all of us—it’s unthinkable, and awful. And none of us deserved it. And I know it’s really easy to feel…Abandoned out here.”

There was a lot of pain in the word abandoned, and she heard it in his voice and felt it inside herself at the same time. _Yes. Abandoned. Given up on. Let behind to die._ That’s what this place was. Where people got unlucky and went to suffer and die and be forgotten until one day, they gave up on themselves too.

“But,” said Quentin, working hard through the exhaustion to find what he was trying to say, “It’s not all like that. Even if I die. Even if you die. I know we believe in really different things,” he added quietly, fingers absently finding the cross he wore for a second, “And that’s—that’s okay, but it’s not okay with me for you not to believe there’s things out there that won’t abandon you, or betray you—I mean, cosmically. No matter what you believe is true about life. That’s way too sad, and it’s wrong,” he added, looking a little hopeful for a second, and sincerely glad. It was so strange to see a look like that on the face of someone who had been through what he’d been through less than five hours ago. “I mean, look at me,” said Quentin, “As bad as this place is, I got maybe the one person on earth who would be determined enough to find a way to save me. I found friends who killed themselves to protect me. We got Laurie to stick around and start caring about movies again, and you and I learned how to dance a little. Feng and Nea fell in love. We’re helping Philip, and he’s helping us.”

It hurt, because it was true, and she was thankful for every one of those things, but it tore away at her to think about the end of any of them. Of losing them, or failing them, or not seeing them get a happy ending.

“There’s good stuff, real good stuff in the world,” said Quentin, “That makes it worth dying and worth living, no matter how awful all of the stuff in between gets. I know that life isn’t good, or easy, or even bearable a lot of the time. Sometimes most of the time. But there’s some kind of cosmic good out there—even if you think that good’s just other people—and it does impossible things, like dancing in hell, or saving someone who should be dead, or making friends with a monster—and I don’t think that’s luck. Lives are kind of terrible, but they’re ours, and we fight hard for all the stuff in between we want to remember. And sometimes things happen that make it so you can keep going, that make you sure there’s something out there that’s good no matter how many times you’ve been hurt before—things like meeting you,” he added, smiling at her and meaning it completely, “Because stuff like that means there has to be something good out there worth believing in. Otherwise it couldn’t exist. And—and it’s important to me that you believe that in some kind of way. No matter what happens, even if we aren’t all okay in the end. That you don’t feel like it didn’t mean something.”

“It isn’t fair,” said Claudette after a second, taking all of that in and feeling hurt and glad and proud and heartbroken, “I do believe there’s good, and I always have, but I used to think it would always win eventually. It doesn’t.”

“No, but it’s always what mattered,” said Quentin.

_How can you still feel like that, after everything you’ve been through?_

“And that’s enough for you?” she asked.

He nodded. “It has to be.”

“I want it to be both,” said Claudette, “I want it to matter and to win.”

A smile flickered across his face. “Well, there’s nothing saying it can’t.”

She smiled back, feeling stupid and embarrassed for coming at him with an existential crisis fresh out of the ER. “Sorry,” she said, “I was just supposed to come see how you were doing.”

“Better, now,” said Quentin, “I’m glad I got to talk to you about that. I needed to think about it too.”

“You’re really feeling okay, though?” she asked, “I mean, for a given value?”

“Yeah,” he said, holding up his bandaged right hand and looking at it, “It’s amazing how much better. I mean, it hurts to move. Like, in any direction. But it’s not terrible. Blood really influences how your body feels, you know that?” he asked, looking over at her, “About the time we stopped I started to just feel better. Like the opposite of malaise. Just generally less awful.” He glanced over towards the other side of the campfire, “How’s Dwight?”

“Light-headed but fine,” said Claudette, “Also, I’m not supposed to say this, but Jake made us give you space so you’d have some time, but whenever you feel up to it, everybody wants to talk to you and see how you’re doing. They’re kind of freaking out.”

“They want to come all at the same time?” asked Quentin, looking a little daunted.

She nodded.

“Okay,” he sighed, “Yeah, I would do that too if it was someone else.” He did his best to give her a tired smile. “I can do it whenever.”

“I’ll tell people,” said Claudette, standing up and starting for the group. _Even fresh off death’s door, you’re trying to look out for the rest of us, huh? Even me. I think you’re wrong and we’re just still co-support units after all. I don’t know how you’re so okay, after…_

She took a step and hesitated, then turned back to look at him. He’d sounded so much better the whole time she’d been talking to him, and when he noticed her pause he looked up and smiled, but for a second she caught something else on his face. More than just the exhaustion and pain he’d been trying to suppress. Something worse.

“You know, for what it’s worth coming from somebody like me, I think someone up there really likes you,” said Claudette.

He looked up at her in surprise.

“You got stabbed in the gut four times,” said Claudette, nodding towards the wound with her head, “And no cut intestines. Not a single one punctured an organ. Inner thigh’s one of the worst places in the world to get cut; if you hit the artery there, you bleed out in minutes. But he missed it.”

The surprise stayed on his face for a second and then changed into something she couldn’t quite place, but his eyes got glossy and for a second she thought he might cry. He smiled instead. “Thanks,” said Quentin, voice husky with emotion, “I hope so.”

She smiled back and went to get the others.

 

* * *

 

Things were bad. There hadn’t been time to acknowledge or face or deal with that except in the most basic of terms yet, but things were very, very bad.

Remembering his own trial with the Nightmare recently and taking in the damage to Quentin, Jake had made everyone clean up and give him some space. Claudette had stayed to make sure he was okay, with Adam and Laurie and David. Eventually, he’d found things to call them off to do too, one-by-one, until it had just been Claudette, and then finally he’d gotten even her to go so Quentin could have a second to himself.

Not that he assumed Quentin probably wanted to be _alone_ after everything he’d just endured, but he’d just almost been murdered. He needed a little time to think through what he wanted to say to people, and to keep to himself, and that wasn’t something you could do with eleven other people breathing down your neck.

Claudette was a god damn miracle for keeping Quentin alive at all, but that didn’t mean this was over, and it needed to be discussed. But probably not in front of Quentin, or David or Kate. Maybe not Claudette either, or Laurie. And for some weird reason Feng? It had taken Jake a long time to get things managed a little alone, with Dwight exhausted from very rapidly losing a little over pint and a half of blood, but as soon as he’d had a second to breathe, he’d gone over to where Dwight was resting against a tree. They needed to talk—someone needed to be thinking, and Dwight had proved himself to be better at this than any of them, and as much as he would have despised admitting something like this back when he’d arrived in the fog, Jake couldn’t even begin to fix something like this alone.

“Nice job,” said Dwight, looking up from watching the others work to look at Jake as he crouched beside him.

“Feeling a little less dizzy?” asked Jake, ignoring the compliment.

“Yeah,” said Dwight, “Ace gave me some water and bread, and that helped a lot. I always used the think the 7-up and crackers after blood donations were like, lollipop rewards after going to a doctor as a kid. I’m only just now putting together they do that to make you feel less sick.”

Jake nodded, then took a breath. “What are we gonna do?”

Glancing over, Dwight took in the serious expression and quiet tone and he looked thoughtful. “About Quentin?”

“We can’t keep going like this,” said Jake, “We get another party member injured…”

“And we’re all going to get slaughtered in trials, you can say it,” said Dwight, resigned.

Jake gave a nod, feeling a little bad. It wasn’t either of their faults, and he didn’t mean to sound like it was, but it was going to be hell for everyone else and especially them. “More than that, though,” said Jake, “It’s the Nightmare. You know he’ll try again.”

“Yeah,” said Dwight with a sigh, “I’ve been thinking about that since we started drawing blood. We have to come up with some kind of cyanide pill he can keep on him, if worst comes to worst. Not sure where to get something like that, but Claudette might know a good plant.”

“And what,” asked Jake honestly, “Have him kill himself in every match with the Clown or the Nightmare? He didn’t see this coming. What if there’s another killer that the Nightmare can go to for the same thing.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” said Dwight tiredly, “I’m working on it. Still, some kind of last-second poison option is a good idea.”

“It is,” agreed Jake, “But what if it’s not enough? What if someone gets the drop on him and he’s too slow?”

Dwight smiled at him.

“What?” asked Jake, a little annoyed. It was a serious situation.

“Nothing,” said Dwight, “I just didn’t know you cared so much.”

Jake sighed internally. “Yeah, well, surprising as it may be to everyone, I actually do care if the rest of you turn up dead at my feet,” he replied, a little more snappily than intended, “You can thank yourself for that.”

“What?” asked Dwight.

“You and Claudette,” said Jake, “You dragged me into a team and made it worth my time. Then you kept bringing more people, and eventually you started making the team more efficient by paying attention to what other people cared about and were good at, and I wanted to live, so I did some minimal paying attention too. I used to be a very effective loner, and now I’ve gone a little bit soft. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

“I don’t know,” said Dwight, giving him a funny look, “I feel vaguely threatened, but I think I am.”

“Whatever,” said Jake, “Point is, Quentin’s going to die sooner or later if we don’t solve the problem at the source. Anything else we do is just…treating symptoms and plugging holes.”

“Okay, but how do you suggest we cut it off at the head?” asked Dwight, “I know you’ve been doing strategy sessions with Quentin and Meg and some of the others—I’ve been to a couple myself. But I don’t think we know how to kill the Nightmare.”

“No,” said Jake, “We don’t. There’s only one thing we really _can_ do that even has a shot of solving the problem.”

“Which is?” asked Dwight, genuinely confused, and a little bit unnerved because he could tell whatever it was, Jake wasn’t totally happy about it.

“Not to sound like a rich asshole, but take it up with the manager,” said Jake, “Which we can’t do, but Philip can.”

There was a second of silence, and Dwight got a look on his face like _Oh,_ but he didn’t say anything. Just looked troubled, running it through his head.

“I know,” said Jake unhappily, “I don’t like it either. It’s a big risk to him and to our plans, but it’s the only decent chance we have at stopping this. We know the Entity wants us not dead-dead, because according to Philip we’re food for it, and if killers do things like what the Nightmare usually does, they get in big trouble. Imagine what it might do if it knew one of its own almost got one for real.”

“How do we know it doesn’t know already?” asked Dwight.

“We don’t, I guess,” said Jake, “But the Nightmare attacked him once a few weeks back according to Laurie, and the Entity didn’t seem to catch that one.”

Dwight was quiet for a second, thinking. “Yeah, okay,” he said, looking up with an unhappy expression on his face, “You’re right. I don’t like it, but next time any of us see Philip, we’ll talk. Maybe we can think of a way to do it that won’t get him reset. I could see us trying to get the Wraith to pass that kind of information along back when he still thought we were full of shit and we were giving him flower chains and confusing him. Entity might buy that.”

Jake nodded. “That’s smart.”

“Just sucks, you know?” said Dwight, looking over to where Kate’s acoustic guitar lay forgotten by a tree, “We were really happy about that. And you saw him—I think he was kind of proud he got it, and we knew Kate would be happy too. I actually thought maybe things were starting to look up.”

“It’s a step back,” agreed Jake, moving and sitting more comfortably beside him, “But we’ve made a lot more steps forward recently than backwards, even with this. It just doesn’t feel like it right now.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Dwight. Across from them, Claudette said something and the group as a whole broke what they’d been doing and followed her over to Quentin in a big circle.

“That didn’t last long,” muttered Jake under his breath. You had to be _really_ particular about what you wanted people to do, or they’d find a way to do exactly what you’d technically _said_ and still skirt around what you wanted, and it drove him crazy. Quentin had had only maybe ten minutes to think things over alone.

“Think you can help me get over there?” asked Dwight, “Looks like everyone’s going, and at some point I should give Quentin the few techniques I’ve carved out for surviving trials with injuries and limited mobility without being a total detriment to the team. Probably a good idea to get that out of the way before he actually gets pulled into one.”

“Sure,” said Jake, putting one of Dwight’s arms over his shoulder and lifting him up. “Still a little dizzy?”

“Yeah, losing almost two pints of blood’ll do that to you,” said Dwight with a smile, leaning heavily on him, “I can’t even tell which part’s the blood loss right now, and what’s the head trauma.”

“You did good,” said Jake after a second as he helped him walk, “Helping keep him alive.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Dwight, almost laughing at himself, “I did an amazing job of having been born with some really choice blood. I think it’s safe to say I almost single-handedly put in all the effort responsible for that win. Claudette and Adam didn’t do _anything._ ”

“That’s not,” Jake stopped and gave up. “Come on, let’s go make sure they take it easy on him.”

 

* * *

 

 

“How much damage?” asked Meg, taking copious notes on the notebook Tapp still couldn’t figure out where she stored most of the time. She did wear a fanny pack while running, but even at portable notebook size, the thing should be too big to fit.

“Well, scattershot did a good deal, but it wore off after awhile,” said Quentin, “It was enough that he really didn’t want to get hit again after taking four.”

“Fuck yeah!” said Meg, clapping him on the knee, because she was trying to go for a body part she was pretty sure hadn’t been badly injured, “And the sword?”

“Technically a paper-cutter,” said Quentin awkwardly, “But at least as much. It did kind of what you’d expect a normal sword to do to a normal person.”

“Damn! That’s so fucking cool!” said Meg enthusiastically, “I wish I could have seen it! I would pay good money—maybe all the money I’ve _ever_ had—just to see someone slice up the Nightmare or empty a barrel of rock salt in his face. Fucking _LEGEND._ ”

Quentin laughed a little, looking embarrassed and a bit proud at the same time.

“How did it feel?” asked Meg, radiating her excitement.

“I’m not gonna lie, it felt pretty good,” said Quentin, smiling at her and the memory, “He _really_ didn’t like it, so that part was great.”

“I want to fist fight the Nightmare,” said Meg, eyes big.

Laurie nodded. “I’d like to kill him too.”

“Wouldn’t we all,” said Ace.

“Do you think it’d be hard to learn how to do that kind of stuff in a dream?” asked Meg.

“For you? Probably not,” said Quentin. “You’d probably be better at it than me. We were right about being able to bend things a little like lucid dreaming, but that’s a lot harder than I thought it’d be, and in the dumbest ways. I can make the gun work, but can’t convince my stupid encyclopedia brain to let the gun not run out of bullets like a normal gun would. You, on the other hand, would probably find some way to give yourself Doc Ock arms or something.”

“Shit, that would be cool,” said Meg quietly, imagining it, “I don’t know, though. You’re the veteran at this stuff. You think maybe it’s like that because you’re making the dream more real, and that’s what makes stuff effective, but also what limits it? As opposed to like, even more dream-trippy? Making a real weapon in a dream world, not creating a fantasy weapon in a fantasy?”

“That’s probably about right,” said Quentin thoughtfully, “Or something. I’m not sure if it has to be that way, though, or if that’s just me.”

Meg nodded and took some more notes.

“Do you want to talk about the rest of it?” asked Ace, passing him a can of water, “Or be left alone?”

“Uh,” said Quentin, taking it gratefully but looking very uncomfortable and utterly exhausted, “I don’t know. Mostly it wasn’t important. I don’t think it would help to know. He just fucked with me a lot and then tried to kill me.”

 _Doesn’t want to talk about it,_ thought Tapp, _Understandable._

People often didn’t. The ‘often’ was the funny part. As a cop, people had always been having to tell him things they didn’t want to talk about, usually hard things, in the hope it would help them get some justice. But that hadn’t always been the case. Sometimes you had to coerce, or convince, or coax, or just plain wait out the information you needed, but sometimes people were itching at the bit to get it out. Even terrible things. Angry sometimes, but more often it had been people who were hurt and trying to understand it. It was odd to him that everyone here seemed to fall under the first category—the kind who didn’t like to talk about hard things that happened to them at all. It wasn’t that one kind was better than the other. Most people only talked about the kinds of things he’d heard in his line of work with their attorney, their mother, or their therapist. But it _had_ got him wondering, with no attorneys, no real cops, no mothers, and no therapists here, if they were all handling those experiences eating away at them inside alright. _Too bad the big spider-monster didn’t snag us all a therapist,_ he thought absently. Although, probably a therapist or a doctor would go insane in a place like this. It was almost too much for him as a cop, and cops were used to the bad-end side of this kind of thing.

“And the rest of you?” asked Tapp, taking pity on the kid and turning the discussion away from him, “What exactly happened with the Clown?”

Kate and David looked at each other and didn’t answer.

 _Every god damn one of you,_ thought Tapp, more tired than annoyed.

“And the new guy, right?” asked Meg.

“Yeah,” said Kate after a second, “The, uh. Clown. Grabbed me and tried to drug me with a rag ‘n then choked me out. Tied me up in the bathroom of the meat packing plant as bait and grabbed the other three when they came to help.”

“Left ‘im in the corner,” added David, glancing at Quentin, “’N cut us up a little while wait’n for ‘im to die. Nothin’ new for us.”

“Bastard brought too many of his supplies for his own good, though,” added Kate, “It was the new guy’s idea. David broke the bottles and we sparked the generator and,” she made the motion for an explosion with her hands, “boom.”

“Was it really bad?” asked Quentin. He looked pained and sorry and like he already knew the answer.

“Nah,” said Kate, “Not worse than shit we’ve had before.”

Tapp didn’t believe that for a second, and watching a couple of the others, he could tell that no one else did either.

“Was no you,” said David, nudging Quentin with the back of his hand and cutting him off when he saw him start to say something and recognized the expression on his face.

“But he only—” Quentin tried, and David cut him off again.

“Kate an I are fine,” said David, “All we are is glad you are no dead. This was no your fault.” He paused, and there was a look on his face Tapp _definitely_ recognized, “Was the Nightmare. ‘N the Clown.”

 _He’s hellbent on murdering that sonofabitch. Good for him,_ thought Tapp absently, not thinking to consider what an unusual thought that should have been for a police officer.

“We gotta get the new guy,” added Kate, glancing first at David and then around at the others, “I swear to god, after everything he did for us, I see another killer touch him and I’m goin’ to rip their throat out with my teeth.”

David nodded his agreement. “Aye. Was damn good in a scrap.”

“I’d like to meet him,” said Quentin.

“We’ll make that a priority,” said Dwight.

They’d spent a long time talking over some of the dream effects and plans the group trying to kill the Nightmare had been working on and how that had turned out, plus just a little generally asking after each other and chatting, and it was starting to wear on Quentin, and to a lesser extent Dwight, and Tapp could see it. Made sense they’d both be exhausted after today.

“Look, I don’t have a lot of time left before I’m so tired I’m useless,” said Dwight to Quentin, “But I’ll talk you through what I’ve learned about making it through trials like this.”

“Thanks,” said Quentin, his voice even more worn out than Dwight’s, “I think that might help.”

“I know there’s a lot we need to talk and think about, but everyone’s worn kind of thin. We should all get some rest soon,” said Dwight, turning to the others, “but let’s keep a rotation at least for tonight. One other person to stay up and make sure he doesn’t fall asleep, if that’s cool,” he added, glancing at Quentin, “I know you never fall asleep anyway, but you’re pretty fucked up, and that makes it a lot harder.”

Quentin nodded, and Tapp thought he looked a little relieved. “Yeah,” he said quietly, “I would appreciate it.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was quiet, and peaceful. For the first time all day. They’d finished their work, and Quentin was okay—or stable at least, and Kate had wanted to be with him in case there was anything she could do, but she also wanted to get far away from him and everyone and be alone. She wanted to cry and scream and rip something to shreds, but she couldn’t.

She’d stayed with him and the others while they’d cleaned up camp and worked, and talked, but finally they were supposed to be going and getting rest, and she could be alone. As soon as she’d felt like it was okay, Kate had disappeared into the woods and found somewhere to sit down, and she’d cried. Long and hard, and as quietly as she could, which hurt, because she wanted to yell, and wail, and sob, and scream into the sky.

But she couldn’t.

She couldn’t let someone hear her, because then they would worry. She couldn’t scream, or everything she was feeling would have to be explained and accounted for, and she couldn’t do that. So she cried quietly, biting down on her shirt to try and stifle the noise.

“You aright?”

Kate looked up, knowing it was David. He was standing a few feet away from her by some thin trees, hesitating.

 _Damn it,_ thought Kate, feeling guilty and tired and sad.

“Yeah,” she said automatically, wiping at her face with an arm.

“Yeah?” repeated David, moving a little closer, “Tha’s why yer sobbin’ alone in the woods?”

“Exactly,” said Kate, eyes swollen and red.

“Okay,” said David, nodding slowly, “Can I come’n sit down, or do ya need me to go?”

Kate thought about that a second, then shrugged. “Don’t matter.”

He moved over slowly and sat down beside her.

It was quiet in the woods now that she wasn’t hearing herself cry. David sat down in the grass next to her and looked at the trees and bushes awkwardly, not looking at her.

“Was rough,” he said after a second. No further comment or explanation.

“I feel awful,” said Kate quietly. “I let him use me to lure the rest of you boys in. If he was dead, it’d be my fault. For bein’ weak.”

David didn’t say anything or look over at her. He kept studying the grass thoughtfully. “I could no kill him,” said David then, bending one knee and propping an arm on it, “Ah tried, but was too slow. Was stupid ah me to rush in like I did. Even after a warnin’ from Laurie. If I’da thought, coulda been different. But ah never do. I just rush in. Do what feels right. That almost got ‘im killed. Maybe coulda saved you an the new guy some pain as well,” he added as an afterthought.

“I thought it was nice of you,” said Kate quietly, looking over at him and seeing a look on his face that was hard to bear. She understood it, because it was how she felt too. “Even if it didn’t work,” continued Kate, “Ah saw you try’n save me. You ain’t stupid for tryin’ to help me—you’re a good man.”

“’N I do no think it makes ya weak or bad to scream when he cut you,” said David, glancing over at her for a second, “But you already know that. Makes precious little difference to how ya feel.”

“Well, I’d feel a lot worse if you _did_ think it made me weak and bad, I think,” said Kate sadly, trying to make him smile. He did, but not with his eyes.

“Ah know it’s no goin’ to make ya feel better—no all the way, maybe no much of it,” said David, eyes on the woods opposite them, “But what matters is we made it. The three of us in that room. Was close, but we did.”

“I didn’t think we would,” said Kate, eyes welling up with tears again. Everything still felt real, like it was still happening. Like she was still in there, tied to a generator, watching her friends suffer while another one died. Unable to do anything.

“I did no either,” said David, face paler and more drawn than usual, “But we did. Quentin’s alive, ‘n he’s gon’ ta stay that way. Yeah?”

He looked at her then, and she nodded.

“Yeah,” said Kate, blinking through the tears in her eyes, “You bet.”

“’N you ‘n me, we done it before,” said David, holding up a fist, “Can do it again.”

Kate brought her fist against his. “Always. No matter how many times.”

“Good,” said David, smiling a little.

Feeling a little better, Kate withdrew her hand and looked at the fist it was still in. “I’m goin’ ta kill the Clown, ‘n then the Nightmare,” she said almost unintentionally, just voicing thoughts.

“Clown’s mine,” said David, “Ah called it back ‘n the bathroom.”

“What?” said Kate, turning to look at his sincerely dead-set expression, “So I don’t get to kill him just because you called dibs while I was, what, unconscious?”

David nodded.

“That ain’t fair,” said Kate, “I’ll arm wrestle you for him.”

“Ah’d crush your little bird arms,” said David, “But I got nothin’ ta prove. Clown’s mine.”

“Can I at least help?” asked Kate indignantly, crossing her arms.

David considered that. “Think about it.”

“You’ll think about it?” asked Kate, leaning over and elbowing him in the side, “I got just as much right as you!”

He laughed and put up his hands. “Okay! Maybe—ow—probably, probably,” he said as she elbowed him again, “Yeah?”

“That better become a yes,” said Kate with a smile.

He grinned but didn’t answer that, and they sat in silence together for a few seconds. Kate felt the smile on her own face slowly disappear. Then the sadness she’d felt before suddenly surged up in her again and overwhelmed her.

Noticing her start to quiver, David looked over in surprise and realized she was crying again.

“Kate?” he asked, hesitating halfway to putting a hand on her shoulder.

“I thought he was dead,” said Kate, looking up at him with tears running down her face, “I thought he was dead ‘n it was my fault, and I’m so tired of not bein’ able to protect anyone. Meg, or Quentin, or Claudette. I wanna keep everyone safe, but I just keep getting used against them, or failin’ on my own. It’s all I do.”

David put his arms around her and pulled her into a hug and she stayed there for a few seconds, crying. “Ah know,” said David quietly, “Is the same for me. Used to be strong enough to protect everyone ah wanted to protect. Now I always get beat. I’m no built for sneaking ‘n no made for plannin’. Without fightin’, I can no do much at all.”

“How do you stand it?” asked Kate, loosening her hold on him to be able to see into his face. He looked as bad as she felt. Tired, and sad, and worn out.

“Is no easy,” he answered, “’N I am no good at it. I’ve been tryin’ to find other things I can do ta make people’s lives aright, since I can no protect ‘em. Not great at that, but is something when you can make someone smile. An I try to make sure if I can no save someone, I do no leave ‘em. Is no a big consolation, but is somethin’, I think, to no be dyin’ alone.”

Kate nodded and took a shaky breath. “You’re right. I’m wastin’ time sittin’ out here feelin’ bad about myself.”

“I did no say that at all,” said David, smiling down at her.

“No, but, I should do what you’re workin’ on and find somethin’ I can do,” said Kate.

He nodded and let go of her arms. “Back to camp, then?”

“Yeah,” said Kate, standing up and offering him an arm, “Walk with me?”

“I’m the bird?” asked David, standing and taking the arm in the overly-polite formal manner, hooking his fingertips around the inside of her arm at the elbow.

“Got a problem with that?” asked Kate.

“No,” said David, “But ahm ah doin’ it right?”

“Yeah,” said Kate, taking a second to inspect his form, “You got it.”

He smiled at her and she smiled back and they headed towards camp together. Kate watched him as they went, taking in his thick arm muscles and broad chest, his slightly rough features, a lot of small scars from countless numbers of scraps, and the way he was holding her arm.

“David,” she said, feeling better inside.

Without breaking stride, he glanced over at her, waiting to see what it was.

“I get how you feel, but you oughta know you make everyone feel safe when you’re around. Even if you can’t kill the monsters or always get us out,” said Kate, “Bein’ with you feels like bein’ safe.”

“Really?” he asked, surprise and pleasure at hearing that for a second completely unguarded on his face.

“All the way,” said Kate.

David smiled and was quiet for a few seconds as they walked, looking pleased and thoughtful, then he glanced over at her. “Is sorta the same way with you, ya know,” he said, “I’m always glad to be in a trial with ya, because it feels like we might make it. ‘N you make it feel like home sometimes, even here. Should no be possible, but you do.”

Kate laughed softly and shook her head, not sure what to say to that.

“You should sing to him—might make him feel better,” said David.

“He doesn’t wanna hear me sing,” said Kate.

“He might,” said David, “Ah would.”

“Well, maybe I’ll see,” said Kate, “I did just get my guitar back.”

“That’s the spirit,” said David.

It could be nice to hear music again.

 

* * *

 

 

“Did you get first watch?” asked Quentin, looking up as Laurie knelt down beside him and made herself comfortable against the log.

“No,” said Laurie, “I volunteered and threatened.”

That made him smile, which is what she’d been hoping for.

“You threatened?” he asked, “that seems a little harsh.”

“Yeah, well,” said Laurie, snuggling up until they were shoulder-to-shoulder and tugging the corner of his jacket over herself like a shared blanket, “I really wanted it.”

“How did you know?” asked Quentin, “That it would happen this time?”

Laurie shrugged. “I didn’t. I just had a bad feeling. After forty years of bad feelings, I tend to listen to them. And If I’d been wrong, all that would have happened is I’d have told some of the others you were in trouble a little sooner than I meant to.”

“You were gonna narc the whole time?” asked Quentin.

“Oh yeah,” said Laurie, dead serious, “I will _always_ tattle if it’s for someone’s own good. I was gonna tell everyone one at a time, and tell them not to talk about it or tell you. Make them unsure who else even know. But you _bet_ I was gonna tell.”

“That’s…smart. And I really can’t be mad,” replied Quentin.

“I’m sorry it couldn’t have been me in there to help you,” said Laurie, “But I promised I wasn’t going to let him kill you. And I won’t. That’s why I told David, and we’re going to figure this out.”

“Before it happens again?” said Quentin, adding the addendum she hadn’t voiced.

Laurie looked over at him, worried.

“It’s okay,” said Quentin, “I know everyone’s thinking it. I am too. He’ll try again, and next time I probably won’t get so lucky. I know we’ll do our best, but I need to be ready for that. At least mentally. I can’t just pretend it’s going to go away.”

The look on his face pained her, and she wanted to say something to make him feel like things would turn out okay, but Laurie didn’t know what that would be. After a day like this, would anything any of them could say really matter?

“I really didn’t expect to be talking to you about all this fun personal trauma stuff twice in one night,” said Quentin, a little smile on his face and his expression distant as he leaned his head back against Jake’s jacket on the log. “It’s going to suck,” he added after a second of silence, because she didn’t know what to say. “Everyone’s going to be worried about me now, and I’m going to make trials rough.” He got quiet for a second, watching the others on the far side of the campfire settling in, just out of hearing if you spoke in low tones. “No matter how much I tell people I’m okay now, I know no one’s going to buy it,” he said quietly, eyes on the fire.

Watching him, Laurie felt bad. Anonymity and privacy were one of the few comforts she still had left. Breaking down in front of the group had been miserable, but that had only been over a fraction of the stuff she had going on inside. If she’d let them know everything, it would have been unbearable.

“They just want you to be okay,” said Laurie.

“I know,” said Quentin, looking away from them and giving her a tired smile, “And I appreciate and love them for it, but…”

_Yeah._

“I wish I could fix that,” said Laurie, not sure what else to say.

He shrugged. “It’s okay. I’ll get used to it.”

 _It isn’t fair, though,_ she thought, _So much of the shit that happens to you is really personal. I wouldn’t want people to know about it—at least unless and until I chose to tell them. Having people know everything wrong with you by looking is an unimaginably horrifying thought. It’s not fair. It’s bad enough stuff happens, you should get to decide who knows about it. And when._

“If you keep quiet about it, I’ll even the score,” said Laurie softly, coming to a decision.

Quentin looked up at her in surprise. “You don’t have to.”

“I know,” said Laurie, “I wouldn’t tell you because I had to. I want to.”

He nodded slowly and held up a hand with three fingers up in a boy scout salute. “Word of honor.”

Laurie smiled at the motion and nodded. She believed him. Babysitters could smell which kids were narcs. “The Shape’s my older brother,” she said quietly.

There was a delay and Quentin looked surprised, but not exactly in the way she’d expected, almost like he was happy for a second, and then he said, “Really?”

“How long have you known?” asked Laurie, narrowing her eyes.

“What?” said Quentin almost convincingly.

“When did you find that out?” asked Laurie, “Why didn’t you say anything? –Does anyone else know?”

“No,” said Quentin. He looked for a second like he might try to lie again but then he gave up. “No one knows. I—back when you…That one trial, in Haddonfield. I was really close working on a gen when you started yelling at him.”

 _Oh, fuck, that’s right. I called him my brother,_ remembered Laurie. _Damn it._

“And you didn’t say anything?” she asked again.

“No,” said Quentin, looking guilty and apologetic, “I thought—well, when everyone talked about it after, you didn’t mention him being related to you to anyone, not even when people asked what you knew about him. So I thought you didn’t want us to know. And I wasn’t trying to overhear—it was an accident—so I thought I should probably just act like I didn’t know unless you sometime decided to tell me yourself. Because it was your secret, and you should get to keep it unless you didn’t want to. I’m sorry.”

Laurie stared at him for a second, and then laughed. He looked surprised by that, and a little worried.

“That was very polite of you,” said Laurie, still feeling tickled at the thought. _Unbelievable. I knew you weren’t a snitch, but apparently you’re the type who’d take it to his grave. Maximum politeness and privacy respect._

“Are you pissed?” asked Quentin, “I can’t tell.”

“Well, it would be kind of mean of me to be angry at you right now, a couple hours after you almost died,” said Laurie, “But no, and I wouldn’t be anyway. I can’t believe you did that, but I appreciate that you waited. I would have been mad, I think, if you hadn’t.”

“Oh good,” said Quentin, massively relieved, then hurried to add, “Sorry I found out—I really didn’t mean to. I was just there and saw you and him and I thought you were in trouble, so I got close, and—”

“It’s fine,” said Laurie.

“So, you were two when you saw him last?” asked Quentin, “I mean—is it okay for me to ask questions?”

“You can,” answered Laurie, “But I won’t answer them if I don’t want to.”

He nodded.

“I was two when he got taken away, but I was four when I saw him last,” said Laurie. “I went to visit him with my mom a couple times when he was institutionalized.”

“Did you ever think about talking to him? I mean, after Philip,” asked Quentin.

Laurie shook her head in mild disbelief. “You and Claudette. –She knows too, she’s the only one—And no. Not really. He killed my older sister and all my friends. Why do you all want me to try talking to him just because he’s my brother?”

“I didn’t mean,” Quentin paused, trying to think of a better way to say things, “Just, I thought you might want to. Not that you have to, or should. You just…always seem kind of sad about it.”

“Wouldn’t you be?” asked Laurie.

“Of course,” said Quentin, “That’s why I thought you might want to try.”

She shrugged. “I’ve tried talking to him. Sometimes I get a little bit of a reaction, but he never stops. I don’t know if he _can_ stop.”

Quentin nodded thoughtfully. “What works?” He took the confused look on her face in and added, “—You said sometimes you get a little bit of a reaction?”

“Oh,” said Laurie, thinking back, “Uh. His name, I guess. Last time I reminded him he was related to me he thought about that for a second, but he still killed me. And then, if you take off his mask he legally can’t stab you again until he puts it back on, but he really doesn’t like that.”

Laurie wasn’t _entirely_ sure why she was being both overly causal and so guarded about this with him after deciding to talk about it. _You shouldn’t have brought it up if you were going to only be vague. Do you trust him, or not?_

“His name,” said Quentin thoughtfully, “Michael, right? It’s too bad there’s no way to find out what he ended up in a sanatorium for. –I mean, besides…”

“Right,” said Laurie, knowing what he’d meant. “Quentin, how come you’re so on board with trying to talk to him?”

He looked surprised. “Uh. I don’t think I’m—I mean, if you don’t think it’s a good idea, you definitely don’t have to.”

“No, I just mean,” she thought for a second, “With everything. You know. You had someone kill a bunch of your friends, and end up here with you. Michael’s pretty similar. Why doesn’t that make you want to stay away from him?”

“Oh,” said Quentin, “Right. Well, he…I don’t know. I…I guess it didn’t seem the same to me?”

“I would have thought it would,” said Laurie, trying to figure that out, “He made me not want to give Philip a chance.”

“Right,” said Quentin, “That makes sense. Especially after…” his expression changed a little, and he looked worn out when he said, “…being here so long. But, uh,” he continued, “It sounded different to me. What you said about him getting locked up as a kid, and being institutionalized. Like maybe there was something wrong with him, instead of just being evil. Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely terrified of him, although I appreciate that he’s very,” Quentin snapped his fingers. “Just stabs you and it’s over. Way less bad than a chainsaw or getting eaten. But I mean, he listened to you that one time. So it sounds like he doesn’t really want to be here. And I guess it was, well, for me it was the first time I saw something like that. I know stuff started with Philip before that trial, but I wasn’t there for any of it. I’d never seen one of the killers even look at us like they might be listening before the Shape, but he stopped and did what you wanted. And—and I wasn’t happy about that, because you were trying to get killed, but it was…” he sort of shrugged, “I guess it was the first time I thought one of them might be kind of human. Sorry,” he added after a second, “If that…”

“It doesn’t bother me,” said Laurie thoughtfully. “I guess that is different from the rest of them. I didn’t think about it like that before. I guess because he’s always been different. He wasn’t something I met here and knew nothing about—I’ve known for a long time what he was.”

“It seemed like, and I might be wrong,” said Quentin slowly, “But like you kind of wanted things to be different. And I get that he’s not a good person and he’s killed us all before, but it…If I had a sibling who was crazy I might want to try and get them back, even if they’d hurt people, so if it was ever something you wanted to try, I’d help you.”

“Of course I want things to be different,” said Laurie tiredly, “But they won’t be. Even if I tried, a lot, for a long time, you can’t make bad people change. You do what you can, but when you get down to it, people only change when they decide to on their own.”

“That’s probably true,” agreed Quentin, looking a little sad.

“Why are you sad about that?” asked Laurie, feeling amused for some reason that he was having such a strong reaction to her murder brother’s welfare.

“Because I want you to be happy,” said Quentin unhappily, “And it would make you happy if your brother stopped killing people and was nice to you, and I can’t make that happen.”

Laurie smiled and let out a quiet laugh. “You’re ridiculous, Quentin,” she said quietly, leaning her head back against the log. “I appreciate it, but I can’t force him to change. I would love to have a good family and a normal life, but if I ever get either of those things it won’t be because my life got fixed. It’d be because I got new ones someday.”

“I could be your new, not-as-bad brother,” offered Quentin, leaning against her shoulder.

“Yeah?” asked Laurie, “Careful offering something like that—I might take you up on it, and once I do, I won’t let you back out.”

“Good,” he replied, “I wouldn’t want you to.”

“Deal then,” said Laurie, “But that means you have to listen to me when I boss you around now, because I’m the older one.”

“That’s okay,” he said, smiling, “I always do anyway.”

“Mmm, mostly,” corrected Laurie.

“Mostly,” he agreed. “I’ll do better.”

She smiled and closed her eyes, leaning against him and feeling him breathe. _I got a family again,_ she thought happily, with just the smallest undertone of murderous intent, _And god help anyone who tries to take it away from me._

* * *

 

 

It had been a long day, and a long night. Honestly, Quentin didn’t know how to feel.

He was tired. He was tired and worn out and strained and tense and in pain. So much pain.

Things had been bad for him before. A lot of times. Really, really bad. But nothing had ever been as bad as what had just happened to him—not really. He was still getting flashes of it, replaying through his brain. Looking at the fire kept making him think of the way it had felt when his shirt caught on fire and he’d smelled his skin burning and Krueger’s silhouette had filled the hole into the shed against the flames around him, but he kept looking at it anyway, because that memory was so much better than most of the other ones that kept trying to come back.

He was trying not to, but he kept thinking about his dad. Over and over. About calling for him, and him not coming. It was just a dream—he hadn’t been real, but that still hurt. It shouldn’t, because it hadn’t been him, and Quentin knew it was stupid, but thinking about it wounded him and made his chest feel hollow, but it kept happening. It was where his mind wanted to go. He missed him so fucking much, and he’d been so sure that he was going to save him, and it hadn’t happened. He was still alive, and thankful for that, but he couldn’t move past that in his head. Couldn’t stop feeling alone and betrayed and abandoned even though none of what had happened there should have mattered.

And Nancy. It hadn’t been real, but he’d thought she was dead, and he still felt that. He was still seeing Kris, and Dean, and Nancy’s mom, and everyone else, and Jesse. Krueger had wanted him to see that—it had to be why he’d dropped him right on top of that specific stone. Because he’d never had to see that one before.

  _I miss you,_ thought Quentin, thinking about spending weekends with Jesse, and then about a date he’d never had with Nancy, and dinner with his dad. _I miss you all so fucking much. I want you to know I’m not dead and that I miss you and I still think about you all the time, but you don’t. I wish you could know that. I need you to know that. But you probably never will._

It had gotten quiet, and that was nice, because Quentin needed to be alone and think. Not alone-alone maybe—he was drained as shit and falling asleep was worse than death, but he needed this time not to be talking. To be able to think and feel a little alone, with some ounce of privacy. It was nice to have the others near, though. Laurie had asked to stay when Meg had come to switch off with her, and that had been okay with him, so she had, but she was asleep now a couple inches to his right. That was good. It was comforting, but he was still sort of alone. Kate was supposed to be sitting with him next to make sure he stayed awake, but he’d asked Claudette when her turn had ended to pass on to Kate that he wanted a couple minutes alone to think before she came over.

He was glad he’d done that. He’d needed to do this.

 _How am I supposed to keep going like this?_ he wondered, looking up at the sky. He used to get by by telling himself it was only a matter of time before they found a way out, and that might still be true, but his odds of making it to the finish line had dropped drastically. Just a matter of time, now, before it ended for real.

That wasn’t what really scared him, though, not anymore. Quentin didn’t want to die, and he especially didn’t want to die like that—the way he almost had, the worst possible way. But he thought, finally, he really did understand some of how Laurie had felt back when she’d wanted to end it. He wondered if he should tell her that, so she would know and feel a little less alone, or if that would just make her sad.

He didn’t want to die—he really, really didn’t, but he was even more afraid to keep going now. What if it happened again? Krueger had told him he hadn’t been sure if he wanted to kill him the first time, and what if that changed again? What if he did it, not once, but twice, five times, ten times? The rare, really awful trial with Krueger before this had been bad enough, but this? He couldn’t do it. He didn’t think he could.

Absently, Quentin put a hand to his face and let his fingers trace the claw marks that he knew were going to be there forever now, a constant reminder of what had happened to him every time he saw his face. Marked.

 _I can’t live through that again,_ thought Quentin hopelessly, _It’s too much. I’ll break._ That wasn’t something he could tell someone, but he had to acknowledge it to himself. It was real, and it was going to be something he had to face. Better to do it now than at the last second, when it happened.

It wasn’t like he was sorry Claudette had saved him. He was happy. He was already sure it had been worth it—just to see how happy it had made everyone else, just to let him have this one more conversation with Laurie, maybe a few days or weeks, even a month with all the rest of them. More than worth it. But at the same time, he was scared. He was so much more scared than he’d been before, and it had been unbearable already.

 _He’s going to get me,_ thought Quentin, the pain in his stomach and leg an unrelenting reminder that came with every breath, _I don’t want that to happen again. God, what am I supposed to do?_

Even in the short time he’d had, he’d run through so many scenarios, trying to find a way out.  But there just wasn’t one.

 _How long do you keep running?_ his mind asked him again, the old question it always had.

 _I don’t know,_ thought Quentin hopelessly, _I don’t want to give up, but I don’t want to go back. I’m scared to go back. I just want to be safe and okay, and for my friends to be okay too. That’s so little, why can’t it happen?_

Quiet and alone, Quentin prayed silently for a minute, for his friends, and for himself, and for his family back home, hoping to find strength or solace in the act or the answers, if he got any. He didn’t, and he wasn’t any more sure about what he would do when he finished than when he’d started, but he felt a little better. The act was comforting.

 _I wish I knew what I’m supposed to do,_ thought Quentin sadly, watching his friends across the campfire, some sleeping, some talking, _If I just knew for sure what was the right thing, that might make me strong enough to do it. I’m so tired._

As he thought that, though, he knew. He’d prayed again and again not to die in that dream, and he hadn’t. As scary and horrible and ugly as living was, he was going to have to do it, and work as hard as he could to enjoy however much of it he had left with his friends. _It’s the only one I get,_ thought Quentin, _Make as much good stuff to remember at the end as you can, and try to hold onto that. You never know, Claudette might be right. Maybe everything will be okay after all. No one can know for sure it won’t be._

He saw Kate coming then, and tried to make himself snap out of the mood, not wanting to worry her. As she came, he realized she was toting a guitar.

“Where did you get that?” he asked in surprise as she sat down beside him.

“Philip stole it back for me,” replied Kate with a smile, “From the Clown of all things.”

Quentin was so surprised it almost made him laugh. “Funny how the world works.”

“Dunno if you wanted to hear anything,” said Kate, lightly strumming the cords and then tuning them as she spoke, “But I figured you might be tired of havin’ the same conversations with us over’n over about today. I take requests.”

It was wild to be hearing a guitar—any kind of instrument—out here, in the Entity’s realm. Familiar, and nostalgic, and kind of wonderful.

“Never thought I’d hear a guitar again,” said Quentin, still marveling over it.

“I know you got a lot goin’ on,” said Kate, tightening a knob on the guitar, “I can pick some real happy stuff, or some good ones to sing along to—give you a good distraction.”

Quentin thought about that. It was a tempting offer. “Thanks,” he said finally, coming to a decision, “But I don’t think I should be distracted right now. I think I have to face what’s happening to me and to try to come to terms with it if I ever want to be okay again.”

“Can I do anything to help?” asked Kate, taking her hands off the guitar’s strings.

“I don’t know,” said Quentin, “Do you know anything really depressing?”

She looked confused and a little surprised.

“I know it’s stupid,” said Quentin, feeling a little embarrassed, “But I like to listen to things like I feel, even if it’s bad. Sometimes it makes it easier to hear it out loud.”

“It’s not stupid,” said Kate, leaning closer to him across the guitar, “Lots of folks do that. You want me to pick something you can sing to?”

“I don’t know,” said Quentin uncomfortably, looking towards the others on the far side of the campfire.

“Most of ‘em are asleep,” said Kate, “Sides, I’ll sing with you if you do.”

“I’m not a singer like you,” said Quentin, too awkward to want to do that in the middle of the group even though he usually enjoyed singing with his music alone.

“Music ain’t about soundin’ good, it’s about feelings,” said Kate, “You sing with it ‘cause you want to, not so everyone can hear you and think you sound nice.”

That was a nice way to put it, but that didn’t mean he was going to feel comfortable singing in front of the others, and he knew she could tell from the look on her face.

“Maybe?” asked Kate.

“Maybe,” he replied noncommittally.

“Okay. Got a song in mind?” asked Kate, not pushing him.

“Not really,” said Quentin, “I don’t think we know a lot of the same music. You can play whatever you think would be good. Just—if you play something really country and sappy like _If I Die Young,_ I’m never talking to you again.”

Kate grinned. “C’mon, I might not know all your British post-punk but I’m not gonna do _that_ to you. I’m sure I can find somethin’ we both know that’ll work.” She thought for a second, strumming absently at the guitar, and then she smiled.

He knew as soon as she started the riff what she was playing.

“Sing with me?” asked Kate, seeing the recognition on his face.

“No,” said Quentin, trying not to grin, “Your pick isn’t serious enough anyway.”

“Sure it is,” said Kate, “And it suits you. Listen to the lyrics.” She hit the first verse and started to sing, fingers tracing over the strings and plucking at them lovingly as she went, “It's all the same, only the names’ll change. Everyday, it seems we're wastin' away. Another place where the faces are so cold.”

She hang long on ‘cold,’ smiling at him and trying to get him to join her. Quentin knew the lyrics, but he wasn’t going to sing it. He smiled and shook his head at her.

“I drive all night,” sang Kate, her voice beautiful and strong, somehow perfectly fitting, like it had always been the one singing this song, “just to get back home. I'm a cowboy,” she grinned at him again, still trying to get him to sing with her, “On a steel horse I ride. I'm wanted, dead or alive. Wanted.”

Quentin hadn’t heard this song in a long time. He didn’t usually listen to Bon Jovi. But it brought back memories, of times before this—driving, going nowhere important, just listening to the radio. With his dad, or his friends. _It’s not such a bad song,_ thought Quentin, feeling a little better, _It’s sort of stupid and cheesy, but._

But it was about how you feel.

“Dead or alive,” sand Quentin quietly with her.

She looked so happy he felt embarrassed enough to want to stop, but too gratified to really choose to.

“Sometimes I sleep,” they sang together, Kate beaming at him, “Sometimes it's not for days. The people I meet always go their separate ways. Sometimes you tell the day by the bottle that you drink, and times when you're all alone, all you do is think.”

He hadn’t heard music in so long. The acoustic guitar against the night was like breathing again after being under water. Music. Real music.

“I'm a cowboy,” sang Kate, fingers moving steadily on the instrument, strumming and shifting her vocal key to harmonize with him, “On a steel horse I ride.”

“I'm wanted,” sang Quentin as she echoed him, “dead or alive. Wanted, dead or alive. Oh, I ride.”

Kate’s fingers flashed along the strings, not able to produce the sound of an electric guitar, but picking at the strings like lightning, and just as intensely fast.

“Oh, and I'm a cowboy,” sang Kate without him, too distracted by her fingering on the guitar to start at the right time, “on a steel horse I ride.”

“I'm wanted, dead or alive,” Quentin joined back in.

Kate grinned at him, strumming hard, bringing the chords to a crescendo, singing alone, “And I walk these streets, a loaded six-string on my back.”

“I play for keeps,” answered Quentin solo, “'cause I might not make it back. I’ve been everywhere, still”

“I'm standing tall,” Kate joined back in, singing with him again, “I've seen a million faces,” she added with a grin as he sang with her, “and I've rocked them all. Cause I'm a cowboy; on a steel horse I ride. I'm wanted.”

“Wanted,” echoed Quentin, grinning back and feeling better than he had in a long time, “Dead or alive. Cause I'm a cowboy, I got the night on my side, and I'm wanted.”

“Wanted,” echoed Kate, “dead or alive. And I ride, dead or alive. I still drive.”

“I still drive,” sang Quentin with her, “Dead or alive. Dead or alive.”

“Dead or alive,” they finished together, “Dead or alive.”

Grinning at him, Kate took her hands off the guitar. Across the campfire they heard a “Woo!” and a clap from Meg, and then an “Ow” as someone hit her to shut her up.

Kate laughed and looked back at him, and Quentin smiled, not minding too much they’d had a little bit of an audience.

“You know any Joy Division at all?” asked Quentin, knowing the answer was probably no, but feeling more relaxed now and thinking it was worth a shot.

“Not that I could play from memory,” said Kate apologetically.

“That’s okay,” said Quentin. It’s what he’d expected. “Wait, you’ve actually heard them? Which songs?”

“Just Atmosphere,” said Kate awkwardly, “It was in _Stranger Things_.”

“I have…absolutely no idea what that means,” said Quentin, “But, I like Atmosphere. That’s a good one.”

“It’s just a show,” said Kate, waving her hand dismissively, “You might like to see it someday—you and Jonathan Byers have very similar music taste.”

“I don’t know who that is, but I guess thanks to Jonathan Byers, whoever you are, for making it so Kate has at least heard one song I actually like,” joked Quentin, grinning at her.

“Ouch, damn,” said Kate, “You know, not _all_ country music is bad. And for someone who doesn’t like Bon Jovi you sure knew all the lyrics.”

“It’s on the radio a lot,” said Quentin defensively, still smiling.

“Any other requests? A little more in my pathetically un-enriched wheelhouse?” asked Kate, sliding her hands along the guitar.

“Let me think,” said Quentin, feeling a little bad even though he knew she was joking, and trying to come up with something he thought it might help him to hear that he also thought there was a good chance she’d know. It only took a second for him to know exactly what he wanted. “Can you play _Dream On?_ ” he asked hopefully.

“Play what?” asked Kate with a blank expression.

 _Oh shit,_ thought Quentin, _I thought for sure—_

“I’m fuckin’ with you,” said Kate, grinning, “Of course I can. Just ‘cause I play country music doesn’t mean I’ve never turned on a radio. You sittin’ there, lookin’ at me like I just asked you what Bohemian Rhapsody is.”

“Okay, I deserved that,” said Quentin shaking his head and smiling, “Sorry I gave you a hard time.”

“You didn’t, I’m just havin’ fun,” said Kate, “So we singin’ _Dream On_?”

He nodded.

“I like your style,” said Kate, tone a little more sincere and serious as she strummed the guitar.  “I think it’s a good choice for you.”

Quentin didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t. Just shrugged and waited as she started the song on her guitar. _I wonder if this is really a good idea._ It used to be—singing about being sad out in his car alone, driving down the highway, or sitting in a parking lot. This wasn’t the same, because he wasn’t alone, but. _Maybe it’s dumb, but it used to help. It felt like if someone felt that way before and lived long enough to put it into a song, it was something you might be able to get past._ Singing made it real, but on your terms. Like winning a fight. Or at least weathering one. Maybe that was a stupid way to feel about it, but no one else had to know, and it made him feel better, which is what he really needed.

“Every time when I look in the mirror, all these lines on my face getting clearer,” sang Kate softly with the guitar.

“The past is gone,” joined in Quentin, matching her melancholy tone, “It went by, like dusk to dawn. Isn't that the way? Everybody's got the dues in life to pay.”

She strummed the guitar like a drum beat and it felt right.

“I know nobody knows where it comes and where it goes,” they sang together, “I know it's everybody sin. You got to lose to know how to win.” Kate plucked at the guitar and Quentin started to tap his foot, keeping time as they started up again. “Half my life is books, written pages. Live and learn from fools and from sages. You know it's true, oh. All these feelings come back to you.”

The feeling in his chest was hollow and aching as he sang, feeling the effort in the cuts across him, but it only made him want to sing harder. “Sing with me, sing for the years, sing for the laughter, sing for the tears. Sing with me, just for today. Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away.”

The guitar filled the night with sound as Kate plucked at it and strummed, melancholy and soft and familiar. Like something you’d missed.

“Yeah, sing with me, sing for the years.”

Quentin looked over in surprise and saw Laurie was awake, singing too. She saw him looking and smiled, and he could see a little of the way he felt on her face.

He’d missed a couple lines, but joined back in with Kate then, Laurie with them now too, “Sing with me, just for today. Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away. Dream on, dream on, dream on. Dream until your dreams come true.”

It felt right, singing with them. Even without really thinking about the words, he knew what they were, and what they meant, and he felt them. _An ironic choice for me?_ he wondered, _Maybe. But not the sentiment. Not how it feels._

What it meant to him.

“Dream on, dream on, dream on,” sang Laurie beside him, louder and louder, and he and Kate matched her energy and volume, rising with it, “Dream until your dreams come true.”

Kate tapped her foot against the ground, letting her guitar riff, and then across the campfire he heard Meg’s voice join in, and then Ace, and someone he wasn’t sure of, and then another, “Dream on, dream on, dream on, dream on.”

“Dream on,” he sang, trying to pick out the other voices around his as most of the people who were awake joined in, “Dream on, dream on! On!”

“Sing with me, sing for the year. Sing for the laughter, sing for the tear. Sing with me, just for today. Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away!” There was a feeling like despair in him with the song, and for a second that was what he felt the most, and it was overwhelming, but then he heard the voices around him and kept going. Singing it out. Singing the feeling out, and singing it with friends whose voices were finding the same feelings in the words he was and choosing them anyway.

“Sing with me, sing for the year; sing for the laughter, sing for the tear,” sang Quentin at the top of his lungs with the rest of them, looking over at Kate and smiling and seeing her smile back, and feeling for a minute the reality and truth of everything, but not alone in it, not abandoned. “Sing with me, just for today; maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away!” They were all together in this, and nothing was ever going to change that, and that was enough. Not because it had to be enough, but because it just was. They were everything, and none of them were alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes as an author I know a bad situation a character gets into and how things turn out at the end, but the in-between /how/ they get out (or don't) is murky, and those times, especially if it's a how they /do/ get out of it, are some of the funnest to write, because you start the section going "Man, I know according to the outline you live, but you're just so fucked buddy. I don't know how to get you out of this," then go for the whole Toy Story 2 "Let's find out together" bravado and push through. Speaking of, blood transfusions.  
> Everything done by the group for a blood transfusion is medically sound (although for the love of god please don't try this unless it's a last resort), and actually the first successful human blood transfusion in history was done using a syringe in 1818 by James Blundell. Additionally, if you ever /are/ in a situation where you have to determine in an emergency if people have matching blood types and you have access to anything that can serve as a sort of microscope, you can figure it out. If blood from two people are mixed and it's a not match, the blood clumps. If there is no negative antigen reaction, the blood will keep just looking like normal blood (until it mixes with the air and coagulates). But it /is/ doable. Blood loss is a huge problem. When you lose close to 40% of your blood, your heart will be having a really hard time getting oxygen into tissue and try to cut off bloodflow wherever it can, and usually the person requires a transfusion. If someone suffers more than 40% blood loss (more than 4 pints for an average adult man), they have to have intense and immediate medical help to resuscitate them, or the strain on their body will be too much for them to survive. They cannot recover alone. A person can go into hemmorhagic/hypovolemic shock around 20% loss and the shock escalates as they lose more blood. After 40% loss, the heart loses its ability to maintain circulation and blood pressure, then organs will start to fail, followed by a coma, then death. Your heart gives out if the blood loss reaches 50%.
> 
> This took a little longer than I expected, so sorry for the wait--though in my defense, I keep accidentally writing chapters at least twice the normal length. (I really need to quit with that). But anyway, here it is. I really hope you all enjoyed it!  
> Thank you all for the overwhelmingly positive reaction to The End of the Line--that was the grimmest thing I've ever written, and I am very glad it did what I set out for it to do and that this turned out so well. It made me really happy to get to see that you all enjoyed it. Thanks again to everyone who reads, comments, and likes! I appreciate you all a ton, and I really hope you enjoy the chapter.


	41. Distortion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What should be a normal trial for Legion, Quentin, Kate, and Jeff is anything but. Kate decides she's had enough. A new person arrives in the fog.

“Mornin’,” said David, carrying over two cups and sitting down beside Quentin. “I did no know if you’d be wantin’ water ‘r coffee, so I got both.” It wasn’t morning—it never was here, but it was the time they’d designated the next day was allowed to start, so in a way it was. Around the fire, most people were still asleep, but about a third were either up or stirring, talking quietly to the people beside them.

“Thanks,” said Quentin, smiling, “What about you?”

“I’ll just drink th’ other,” said David, holding out the containers.

“I’ll take the water,” said Quentin, accepting the metal container. They were probably running low on water, after yesterday. It wasn’t an easy thing to come by here, and Claudette worked really hard to have a supply on hand, but a whole lot of it had been spoiled sort of incurably with salt and blood. _I wonder how much we have left,_ thought Quentin, feeling a little guilty as he looked down at the cup.

“How’re ya feelin’, kid?” asked David, “Any better?”

“You always call him ‘kid’ like you were Han Solo and he’s Luke Skywalker,” said Laurie, walking past David to sit at Quentin’s other side, arms full with two plates and some freshly baked flat cakes of Claudette’s.

David looked at her in mild surprise at the reference because that was usually more of a Meg thing, and smiled.

“Meg’s been trying to get me to use pop-culture references more, because she says it’ll help me get along better with people,” explained Laurie, crossing her legs and offering Quentin a plate, “But with you all, it’s hard to know what’s still going to be relevant. I’ve got like… _Star Wars,_ and _Jaws,_ and _Monty Python and the Holy Grail,_ but apparently not _The Sting,_ according to Meg. You all made some weird choices in what you wanted to remember about the 70s.”

“So, in this analogy, does that make you Princess Leia?” asked Quentin, accepting the plate and taking a bite of the bread. He hadn’t realized he was hungry at all, but as soon as he took a bite he realized he was famished.

“I don’t know,” said Laurie thoughtfully, “She is the coolest character, so I’d like to be her. ‘Into the garbage chute, fly-boy!’ But maybe I should be Obi Wan instead.” She counted off on her fingers. “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you all, history with someone we fight who breathes super loud, I stab people. Plus,” she added to David, “Quentin’s my new brother now, so the three of us would make a really weird love triangle. –What? Why are you laughing? Why are you both laughing at me? Stop laughing.”

“I’m sorry,” said Quentin, choking on his bread and trying to stop. David cleared his throat and put a hand up, trying to hide his smile.

“I don’t get it,” said Laurie unhappy and confused, “Why are you laughing at me? What did I say?”

“Hey,” said Quentin, setting down his bread, “Do you want to know what happens in _The Empire Strikes Back?_ ”

“Really?” asked Laurie in surprise, “But…Meg said—”

“What’s she gonna do,” said Quentin, “Kill me? I’m fine with that. Plus, I owe you big.”

“Okay,” said Laurie excitedly, tucking her knees in and propping her chin up on her hands, watching him expectantly.

“You remember the last one well, right? And how it ended?” asked Quentin.

“Of course I do—they blew up the Death Star, and Han came back to help Luke at the last second, and they all got medals, but Darth Vader wasn’t on the station when it blew up, so he’s still alive,” said Laurie, still excited, “Go on.”

“You really liked it, huh?” asked Quentin, enjoying how happy she looked.

“I don’t think you understand what a big deal that movie was,” said Laurie, “It was…Everything. And I mean _everything._ I watched it six times, and learned how to play the music on the piano. I—I bought the soundtrack record.”

“Well,” said Quentin, a little less sure of himself under that kind of pressure, “I’m no Meg, but here goes.” He took a deep breath. “So, after the incident with the Death Star, the rebels lived, but they had to get a new base because the Empire knew where they were. They moved to this small ice planet called Hoth, and it’s been a little while. The Empire’s still looking for them though, but they’re alive, so they’ve got hope.”

“And Han’s still with them?” asked Laurie.

“Oh, yeah,” said Quentin, “He stayed. He’s been helping.”

“I knew he would,” said Laurie, grinning, “He acts tough, but he’s a big softie. Is he with Leia now? Or is she with Luke.”

“She’s not with either of them, but she’s _super_ into Han,” said Quentin, “And he’s super into her, but too proud to say it.”

“They’re both too proud,” added David, “Tha fools.”

“But Luke still likes her too?” asked Laurie.

Quentin looked at David, trying to remember. “Yes,” he said, with a lot more assurance than he felt. “He does.”

Laurie nodded. “Okay. So how does the movie start?”

“Big rolling credits over stars, like usual,” said Quentin, “ _Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back._ ”

“NOOOO!” came a mournful wail from across the campfire.

“She’s got ears like a bat,” said Quentin, looking up in dismay as Meg came running.

“Ya had a good run,” said David, putting a hand on his shoulder sympathetically.

“I’m not stopping,” said Quentin as Meg got close, “I’m telling her, and you can’t stop me. She saved my life and she deserves to know.”

“I can’t let you do that,” said Meg, skidding to a stop on her knees in front of them, out of breath.

“I’m doing it,” said Quentin, dead set.

“Then someone who's trained to handle antique films is gonna do it,” said Meg with a heavy sigh.

“Was tha’…Ya quotin’ _National Treasure_?” asked David with a sincerely taken aback look on his face.

“David,” said Meg, pointing at him without looking, “You’re my kind of guy. Yes I was. Okay, Laurie,” she said, focus totally on the girl in front of her, “This is one of the best movies ever, and I’m not gonna be able to do it justice on short notice like this, but bear with me. For Quentin.”

“I’ll…live,” said Laurie, flashing Quentin a look and smiling.

“Okay. So. We open. Big-ass, scrolling text.” She paused and started to sing the opening _Star Wars_ theme. “You get the idea. Full disclosure, I used to know this verbatim, but I played the shit out of the Lego Star Wars games and all I’m seeing is that opening scrawl. I’m 99% sure it’s the same though. Okay. For real this time.” Meg started again, singing for a few seconds to set the mood again, and then launched into her narration. “It is a dark time for the Rebellion. Although the Death Star has been destroyed, Imperial troops have driven the Rebel forces from their hidden base and pursued them across the galaxy. Evading the dreaded Imperial Starfleet, a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth. The evil lord Darth Vader, obsessed with finding young Skywalker, has dispatched thousands of remote probes into the far reaches of space...”

Quentin watched Laurie’s face as she listened. She looked happy. Actually, really happy, and interested—maybe even excited. _Good. Man, I really hope it’s everything you’ve been waiting 40 years to find out._

“The text fades and we’re in space,” said Meg, “Deep in space. Pan down to a massive Imperial Destroyer. It drops probe after probe from its bay at the base, and the droids shoot off into different directions. We follow one, and it heads towards a white planet. The probe breaks the atmosphere and crashes into a snowbank. As the smoke and snow spray clear, the droid rises from the crater, scanning for life in the snow. And we realize. Snow? 'Ice planet Hoth?' The Rebel's luck just ran out, and shit's about to get real.”

 _Oh damn it,_ thought Quentin, looking down and seeing his arm starting to fade out, _I’m Marty McFlying._

“—Wait, stop,” said Laurie, cutting off Meg’s description of a Tauntaun, “Quentin?”

“It’s okay,” said Quentin, holding up a hand, “It was going to happen sooner or later, and I already got a good, long stretch. You can keep going,” he added to Meg, “I don’t want her to have to wait. She’s already waited long enough.”

“No, I want Luke and Han here with me to finish it,” said Laurie, trying to smile reassuringly as she took the hand that hadn’t started to fade yet.

“Hey!” called Meg to the others, “Quentin’s getting pulled into a trial—who else is going?”

“Me!” called Kate, dashing over.

“We have any shrouds left?” asked Meg.

“No,” said Jake, looking grim.

“It’s okay,” said Quentin, smiling at Kate, “I’ll lay low and hide at the first sign of danger. Dwight broke it down for me.”

“If it’s the Nightmare—” said Kate.

“I know,” said Quentin, “Or the Clown. Kill myself.” He turned back to Laurie and waved as he vanished. _See you soon._

* * *

 

 

“This is not a discussion,” said Frank angrily, pacing back and forth like a caged dog.

“Yeah, because nothing’s ever a discussion with you!” shouted Susie, throwing her arms up, “You just tell everyone else what to do! You never listen!”

“Oh, I don’t listen?!” snapped Frank, whirling, “ _I_ don’t? ‘Susie, don’t talk to the survivors—you’ll end up dead,’ ‘Susie, you can’t break the rules or we all go down,’” he shouted, voice rising with each accusation, “’Susie, stop fucking things up or you’re gonna get erased!” He slammed his fists into the wall for emphasis. “How are you so _fucking_ dumb? _I_ don’t listen? You know—you _know_ —”

“—Oh shut up!” shouted Susie over him, “I’m not going to get us all killed by having _one_ friend!”

“—how dangerous this is,” Frank kept on over her, “Do you _want_ to die? No, really, because I’m confused. Because that’s _how you’re acting!”_ he shouted.

“Okay, yes, she’s being stupid,” said Julie, trying to sound reasonable, “But calm down—she’s not doing it to get us in trouble on purpose or anything.”

“I tell you to stay away from her,” said Frank angrily, ignoring Julie completely, “And you say you will, but do you?”

“So you try to kill her?” asked Susie indignantly, “Well congratulations, Frank, it did _exactly_ what you wanted it to. She _totally_ backed down. You did a great job.”

“I was trying to _protect_ you!” he said angrily.

“Oh, yeah, so you lovingly try to kill her to protect me, like a good team leader, how thoughtful,” snapped back Susie, “Come on,” she added pleadingly, appealing to the other two members of the group, “Why is it such a big deal? She’s offering a pretty good setup. I don’t have to kill people, and nobody gets in trouble. Unless you tell on me. Which none of you will, right? Because we’re friends.”

“Susie,” said Julie sympathetically, “It’s not that simple. The Entity’ll find out sooner or later, whether we tell it or not. This really is for your own good.”

“Exactly,” said Frank.

“But I really like her,” said Susie unhappily, “Can’t I just at least give it a try?”

“No,” snapped Frank, “No, and if you do, I’m going to fuck her up for real this time. You want what’s best for her and you and all the rest of the team? Stay away from her! Why is that so _goddamn_ hard for you to get through your head?”

“Hey,” said Julie calmingly, “Maybe we could see if the Entity would add a fifth? Then everyone gets what they want.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” asked Frank, genuinely surprised rather than angry because it had been such an unexpected suggestion. “No. No—no way. I don’t like her.”

“Because she kicked your ass?” asked Susie broodily from the floor.

“Shut the hell up,” snapped Frank, turning on her, “I beat her and all the rest of her team four vs one. She didn’t do shit.”

“Uh-huh,” muttered Susie, sending him dirty looks, “Take that mask off and let’s see how pretty your face looks.”

“You little—!”

“—Frank,” said Julie, cutting him off and trying to intervene. “Susie, come on. Both of you stop it.”

“Me?” asked Frank indignantly.

“Can’t you see she’s upset?” asked Julie.

He looked at her and then back at Julie and let out an angry breath and started to pace. “God, Susie,” said Frank finally, running a hand through his hair in agitation, “I don’t get why you’re making such a big deal out this. It’s one girl—you barely know her. We’re the Legion—we’re a team. Us, just us. And now, because of you, we could all end up dead. Is that what you want? Did you switch loyalties? You like her better than us now or something?”

“Maybe I do,” said Susie, “She’s actually nice to me.”

“Oh my god,” said Frank in angry disbelief, “You are such a baby—you know that? This is serious—you can’t be petty about this shit. It’s us, or them! Forget your goddamn _feelings_ for half a second, and think about if you want to stay alive!”

“Of course she does!” said Julie, “And we all want her to too. She’s younger than you, Frank—cut her some slack.”

“I have cut her slack!” shouted Frank, “If I cut her any more, she’ll have just enough to hang herself on!”

“Good!” yelled Susie, “At least then I wouldn’t have to listen to _YOU_ all the time anymore!”

“He’s just trying to keep you safe!” reprimanded Julie, “Susie, you know what could happen to us. Please,” she said much more pleadingly, “Come on. Stop all of this. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“But you want me to just keep killing people, and killing people?” asked Susie, not backing down this time.

“That’s the deal,” said Frank, “We kill shit, the Entity leaves us alone.”

“I know it’s rough, but we’re getting by,” said Julie consolingly, “And we’re getting good at it. We hunt in a pack and we’re strong—there’s nothing to be afraid of anymore. And that’s great. Doesn’t it make you feel free? And strong? To finally be the thing on top?”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of because we’re the badguys!” shouted Susie, “Don’t you get it?”

“We aren’t the badguys!” said Julie indignantly.

“What do you _mean_ we aren’t the badguys?” yelled Susie in disbelief, “We kill people all the time!”

“We’re on top,” said Frank, “We look out for each other, and we do what we have to. If that means we kill people, fuck ‘em. It’s that simple! Get on board with it, or fuck off and die, if that’s what you really want!”

“Hey,” said Julie, turning on him, “Both of you need to calm down!” She looked back at Susie. “He didn’t mean that—”

“—Oh, he meant it,” snapped Susie, “And I don’t even care! I’ve _never_ been good enough for you and your stupid gang and I never will be!”

“Yeah, because you’ve always been a huge fucking pussy!” snapped back Frank.

“Would you both STOP it?!” shouted Julie, “Can we talk for two minutes without screaming at each other?”

“Takes one to know one!” yelled Susie.

“What? A screamer?” asked Julie angrily.

“Yeah!” screamed Susie.

“Why the _fuck_ are you like this,” shouted Frank, banging his head against the wall, “Why can’t you ever shut up! Or act like you’ve got one third of a brain?”

“Because I have a whole one! Sorry I can’t dumb down enough to get on your level!” shouted Susie.

“I’m this fucking close to done!” yelled Frank, whirling on her angrily.

“Fine! Then kill me! I know you want to! It’s all you ever do anyway!” screamed Susie, “All you’re good at is killing people!”

“Yeah, okay,” shouted Frank, “If that’s what you really want!”

“Frank!” snapped Julie.

“I hate this fucking team!” screamed Susie.

“Well, good!” screamed Frank right back, “Because this team fucking hates you!”

“We’re, uh, getting a summons,” said Joey, pointing to the flicker of firelight that meant they were about to get a trial, “If you all want to keep arguing about this, mind if I take it?”

“Fine!” snapped the other three.

“Just go,” said Frank angrily, “But don’t expect any help.”

“I’m good,” said Joey, switching places with Frank and retreating towards the light, “Don’t need it.”

Joey disappeared into the trial, feeling a little bit bad for Susie even if she was being a bratty little dumb bitch about this, but really fucking glad to get out the arguing for a couple minutes. Sinking a knife into some people really ought to help him get rid of some of the tension he’d been carrying in his shoulders ever since this stupid thing with Meg had started. He could get it if Susie had thought she was kind of cute or something, but Meg wasn’t very pretty. She really should listen to Frank. He was the leader for a reason—he was older and smarter and basically always right. Frank had experience. And Susie was the bottom of the totem pole.

 _Well, at least I get to be the top dog for a little,_ thought Joey, flexing his muscles as the swamp burned into existence around him, _Thank god I don’t have to listen to all the fighting either. What a relief._

None of getting stuck in this place had been easy on him or the others, but at least they’d had each other, and they were getting really good at hunting. Joey didn’t really like it, but he tried not to think about that part too much. –The chasing people was fun, and the scaring them, and sometimes even the stabbing them and making them scream, but he wasn’t a huge fan of actually…killing them. That was pussy stuff, though, and he had to get over it. Be strong, and be cool, and be tough. They didn’t matter—only his friends mattered, and they did what they had to, and had each other’s backs, and fuck anyone who got in their way.

Still, if he could help it, Joey always left them on a hook for the Entity to finish off instead of carving them up himself. He’d killed one a couple times, and it hadn’t felt great. It had been a huge rush when he was doing it—kind of afraid to start, and weird and gross at first, but then like a high when he was in the middle of it. But after, it had felt bad. Like he would have felt if he’d accidentally backed over his dog and just heard the thunk that cued him in, only that moment persisted.

Hunting was fun though. He was getting really good at it, and it got easier the more times you did it. He could see if it was hard for Susie. It wasn’t normal—none of them had had any practice with this kind of stuff, except for that one janitor. Killing was so taboo back home, but here it was life. She’d get used to it, though, like he had. Just push down feelings and try to think about the rush, and the power, the way it felt to be in charge and with nothing that had a hold on you. She’d get numb, and get over Meg, and things would go back to normal and be fine. They’d have to stop fighting eventually.

 _I’m going to find one of them and really carve them up,_ thought Joey, trying to get rid of all the bad feelings he’d been piling on trapped in there with his friends fighting for so long, _One of the ones that thinks they’re hot shit, and I’m going to beat a little pride out of them. That should help._

Joey had been circling the area since he started, checking generators one-by-one, looking for one being worked on. It was weird, because he hadn’t hit even one that had been touched yet. Sometimes it was hard to find people, but usually he’d get a generator that was partially repaired in under a minute. He’d almost finished his complete rotation, though, and nothing yet.

 _Cowards trying to hide, huh? You’ll never get anywhere without some strength and a backbone,_ thought Joey, and then in a row of low walls nearby he saw someone crouched by a generator. _Perfect._

He broke into a run, sprinting full-tilt down the hill, and as he started to get closer he recognized the bearded man he’d seen several times before. The man heard him coming and let go of the generator and ran, but Joey was fast. His prey took off for the low walls on their right and Joey made a guess at the man’s escape route and cut him off, weaving through the walls and appearing right in front of the man as he rounded a corner and fell back in surprise. Joey raked his hunting knife across the man’s shoulder as he fell back, feeling his adrenaline kick in as the hunt started for real. _Yes! That’s better! I knew this would make me feel good! Go on, run, I’ll find you,_ thought Joey, watching the man turn and take off through the weeds, giving him a head start, _Let’s make this a challenge._

Joey dashed after the disappearing man, adrenaline pumping, focus entirely on catching him, and then he was on top of him in the high grass, bringing the knife down across his back. The man screamed and pitched forward, barely keeping his feet, and kept running as Joey dashed after him, their gift from the Entity kicking in and multiplying his speed, heightening his senses. He could hear heartbeats around him. There was one far behind him, moving, and another close up ahead, and then out of his peripheral he caught sight of one coming from a locker near a half-repaired generator.

 _I want this one, though,_ thought Joey, sights still set on the man with the beard, _He’s big and I bet he thinks he’s tough._ Going after anyone who tried to hide had always been big with the Legion. Frank had drilled in again and again how cowards had no place, and they were gonna make them learn that. But just the same, Joey wanted someone to fight, and this guy seemed like a good choice for that.

Only, when he turned his attention back from the heartbeats near him, the man with the beard had vanished.

 _What the hell?_ thought Joey in dismay, _No! I only looked away for a second—god damn it!_

It drove him crazy when people did this. Sometimes he’d be right behind someone and they’d just be gone in a cornfield. Like they’d fucking teleported. He could usually hear them, but not find them, and he hated it because it made him feel stupid to lose someone so easily, and sometimes the readhead or the girl who was really good at sneaking or the one fast on gens would taunt him about it if they made it to an exit in time, and it was the fucking worst.

 _I’m not stupid,_ thought Joey angrily, like he could hear them calling him names, _I’m not!_

People always used to say that shit to him before Frank, but they’d been wrong. _I’m not stupid._

He turned towards the nearby half-finished generator, set on getting someone and making them pay, and fast.

 _Guess it’s the coward then,_ thought Joey, vaulting a windowsill and landing in the middle of the row of walls housing the locker and generator beneath one of the old docks. _That’s fitting anyway,_ he added, trying to make himself feel better. _I’m about to fuck this guy up so much._

He closed the distance to the locker in one quick movement and flung it open, knife raised to slam into the wall as a threat before he really caused some damage, or into someone’s arm if he felt like it, free hand automatically shooting inside and closing around a throat before visuals had really kicked in, and then he froze up, arm raised, hand around a throat.

_W—what?_

Joey stood there, just staring for a second. It wasn’t exactly pity or anything—it was mostly surprise—but the boy in the locker staring back at him with big eyes looked like he’d been through a woodchipper.

_Oh my god. Is there someone besides me in this trial? What the—he—wh…?_

“What the fuck happened to you?” asked Joey automatically in a hissed whisper, so completely taken aback that he forgot they weren’t supposed to talk to their prey.

The boy looked back at him with a weird mixture of dread and confusion. “Uh,” he said after a second, like he wasn’t sure that he should answer. Joey still had his hand around his throat and his knife raised.

“Do you just look like that?” asked Joey, still running this through and feeling confused and weird. He didn’t think he’d ever seen somebody look so fucked up, even after he’d killed them. There were scratches all over his face taped shut, and bandages on like…every part of his body Joey could see, including all over his chest and stomach, because his shirt was fucked too.

“A different killer happened,” answered the guy a little awkwardly.

 _I thought they fucking healed after this. They sure as hell don’t die,_ thought Joey, still just staring at the boy whose throat he had a hand around.

“Oh,” said Joey finally, trying to snap himself out of it. _Shit. I should…uh. Fuck._

“Are you…” said the boy slowly, looking down at the hand around his throat, and then the raised knife, still poised in the air above him, “Uhm.” They stood in silence for a second. “Are you gonna not…” said the boy when Joey still didn’t do anything, “…C-Can I go?”

 _Oh fuck,_ thought Joey, starting to sweat, _Okay, SHIT, let’s go—you’re losing steam. Don’t be a Susie. Be a Frank. Throw him on a hook. Come on, let’s go!_

Fuck though, it was like kicking a dog. Usually it felt kind of fair, because people started out just as healthy and strong as him, and a lot of the time bigger, and they’d run and struggle and fight, and he’d win, but fucking up this guy was going to be like going into a hospital ward and dragging someone out of intensive care to kick the shit out of them.

 _No, don’t be a Susie,_ Joey told himself frantically, trying to stop feeling the pity he’d accidentally started to feel when he mentally compared the boy to a dog, _Man-up._

“No way,” said Joey, trying to sound fierce, and leveling his knife at the guy’s face, “You’re going up on a hook like anyone else.”

He tried not to look at the boy’s face as he dragged him out of the locker. _Shit, but if I throw him over my shoulder I’m gonna tear up all those stitches,_ thought Joey, still maneuvering the boy by his grip on his throat. _God damn it! Stop being such a wuss about this! He’s not your friend!_

Weakly, the injured guy started to struggle, trying to get the fingers off of his nick, which Joey was only just now noticing was pretty scratched up too and starting to bleed a little.

_The FUCK kind of killer got at him? A rabid cougar?_

“Stop that,” snapped Joey, jerking him in the hopes that making it hard to breathe would discourage him from trying to escape.

“Why,” choked out the guy, “So you can kill me easier?”

 _Even your jeans are fucked up,_ thought Joey, _It’s hard to do that to good denim. I should know._

“No!” snapped Joey, dragging the guy’s head closer to him and pointing the knife at it, trying hard to sound menacing and assured, “Hunter policy is to throw you up on a hook without extra stabbing shit if you’re too weak to even run. It’s no fun without a chase. Sooner you heal, sooner we go back to having a real hunt.”

“Why don’t you let go of me and we’ll see if I can run,” said the boy, still struggling to break free of his hand.

“I’m not gonna not hurt you just because you’re already fucked,” threated Joey, jerking him closer, “Either stop struggling, or—”

There was movement in front of them and Joey turned to look, and the injured boy followed his gaze. Joey was just in time to see a woman staring at him for split second before she vanished around the bend only ten feet away, and he gaped in shock at where she’d been, still seeing her after-image.

“Oh my god,” said Joey, loosening his grip on the injured boy, and then turning back to him, “Was that Jane Romero?”

“W-What?” said the boy, looking from him to where the woman had been, “No,” he said, sounding unconvinced himself, and then much more surely, “No, that’ can’t have—Ah!”

Joey took off for the edge of the walls, dragging the injured guy with him because he couldn’t just let him go, but he had to know if he was losing his mind and seeing things, or if that had really been her.

 _How can that be?_ thought Joey, _Oh my god, I hope it is! She’s so cool!_

Rounding the corner full-speed, Joey decided moving while towing the guy behind him by a hand around the neck was becoming a hassle, so he used a fraction of his arm strength to pull his captive close to him and hold him there so he could know where he was without having to look. Free to focus on finding the woman, Joey scanned the area while pinning the guy against him with an elbow around his throat. She’d vanished.

“There’s no one,” choked out the boy.

“—Shhh,” said Joey, “Just shut up a second.” There wasn’t—not that he could see. But there were a lot of good hiding places. _Oh, I got it,_ thought Joey. He let the gift he’d received from the Entity flood his body and raised his knife over the boy he was dragging with him.

“Wait,” pleaded the injured guy, looking up at the poised knife, “Buy you already got me—there’s no reason—” He saw that Joey wasn’t going to stop and closed his eyes, bracing.

 _It won’t hurt that much,_ thought Joey, slicing the tiniest cut on the boy’s arm, about the size of a finger prick—just enough to draw blood. He really needed to know who that had been, because it had sure looked like his favorite tv personality. There was no goddamn way, but…

Immediately with the blood drawn, Joey’s senses heightened and he could feel the boy he was holding onto’s heart thudding in his chest, some other presences faintly up on and near the old building behind him, and then there—in a locker again. Only about two feet away. _I knew I saw someone!_

Dragging his captured prey with him, Joey went to throw open the locker, but it threw itself open first. The metal door caught him across the face and he went reeling backwards, dropping the boy and sending them both onto the ground as pain shot through his head. Hand up to his mask, he saw the woman tear out of the locker and heard the injured boy say “Jane Romero?” in a completely astounded voice, and then she scooped him up into her arms and was booking it across the swamp, leaving Joey in the dirt with his head pounding.

“Wait!” called Joey, dragging himself to his feet and stumbling after them, “Come back!”

They didn’t. Joey took off sprinting, still trying to run _Jane Romero_ and the massive permanent damage to the injured guy about his age fully through his skull. _This is some fucking kind of day,_ thought Joey in confusion, losing their trail for a few seconds in the high weeds when a generator nearby turned on, and then picking it up again and following it to the rotting building. _I’m so confused! Why is Jane Romero here? I wish she hadn’t run off—I wasn’t gonna stab her. I just wanted to talk. Wait…do I have to stab her?_

Joey vaulted a low sill in the old wooden house, hurrying through the underbelly, past old cages with skeletons in them, and up the rotting stairs to the top of the structure, tracks getting fresher and fresher as he ran. _I’m almost there,_ he thought, wondering what to do when he caught up with them, and then suddenly he’d turned the corner and there was the bearded man from before, just disappearing into one of the rooms at a run.

 _God DAMN it!_ thought Joey, furious and disappointed, _You again?! You made me lose her!_

He took off after the man, catching up as the older guy threw down a pallet between them, breathing hard in the second of respite he’d earned while he waited to see if Joey would climb over it, or break it, or try to circle around it.

 _Fuck games,_ thought Joey, flooding himself with the Entity’s gift and leaping over the pallet at incredible speed, catching the man in the back as he turned to run and hitting him so hard he stumbled into one of the large barrels on the second story of the building and lost the little lead he’d had.

 _I got you,_ thought Joey, throwing himself on top of the older man and knocking him to the ground, knife raised.

He could feel the man’s heart thudding as he looked up at the wickedly serrated knife in dread, almost loud enough to drown out another heartbeat pumping even faster behind Joey. _Wait a second,_ thought Joey.

“Get the,” something rammed into Joey’s side with incredible force and he went flying into a barrel himself, ramming his head against its side, “HELL off a him!”

 _Jesus fuck,_ thought Joey in a daze, looking up to see the curly haired blonde girl towering over him in the split second before she was done towering and threw herself at him. _Oh shit._

She landed on his chest with a thud, straddling him and knocking the breath out of him as he sliced his knife up and across her chest. He knew he’d hit her because she started bleeding all over him, but she didn’t even seem to notice. She started ramming her fists into the side of his head.

“Get off me, you crazy bitch!” shouted Joey, trying to stab at her again.

“I’m never getting off!” screamed the girl, ramming her elbow into his chest painfully, “You fucked up Meg’n me ‘n Claudette, ‘n Ace, and I’m sick of all a y’all! _I’m_ killin’ someone today!”

She was crazy, like a rabid animal, and it freaked him out because he’d never seen someone do this—even that time with Frank, when he’d almost lost to the redhead, she hadn’t gone ape-shit on him.

“Get the fuck off!” he screamed again, slicing at her and managing to sink the blade into her arm. She grabbed the hand with the knife and sunk it in even further, and then dug her teeth into his hand.

 _Jesus CHRIST she’s lost her mind!_ thought Joey frantically, feeling real fear for the first time in a long time. She still had her teeth on his hand and she started chewing. _OH MY GOD, She’s trying to eat me!_

“Stop,” screamed Joey, kicking at her and flailing, trying to grab the knife with the other hand. He got a hold on the knife and tore it out of the girl’s arm, struggling madly, and threw his weight to one side and rolled, until they were side-by-side instead of her on top of him. _Crazy bitch,_ thought Joey again, in fear and desperation, trying to make it on top of her. He brought his hand up to dig the knife into her chest, and she swung around suddenly, catching his hand around the wrist with her hands and swinging her lower body up towards him, hooking her legs around his upper arm so it was wedged between her thighs, and then she twisted her lower body away from herself and him violently, and he felt immense pressure from her thighs and then his arm snapped and he screamed.

There were two seconds where Joey was feeling pain and had no idea what was happening, and then he was beneath her again and his arm was hanging weird and screaming with pain and she had the knife.

 _Oh god,_ thought Joey, terrified, _She broke my arm with her thighs and she’s gonna kill me._

“Wait, wait, wait!” he shouted, desperately tearing his cloth skull mask of with the hand he could move. “—I-I’m not Frank! That’s a different one of us! I’m Joey!”

“Makes no difference,” spat the girl on top of him venomously, “You’re all the same! You were about to kill that guy without even knowin’ who he was—I’m supposed to care you’re ‘Joey’?”

“Wait a second,” said the bearded guy, staring at him from where he’d been half-sitting, half-laying on his back on the rotting wood floor, bleeding from several deep cuts and watching this go down, “Joey Harmin?”

 _How the fucking hell._ “Uh,” said Joey, sweating bullets.

“You know him?” asked the blonde girl on top of him, pausing with the knife raised.

“Y-yeah,” said the bearded guy, looking confounded, and struggling to sit more upright, “He went to school with me.”

“What, when you were forty?” asked Joey in disbelief.

“I’m Jeff Johansen,” said the bearded guy, pointing at himself.

“What?” said Joey, staring at him. _What the fuck?_ “Who?”

“I worked at the video store—we were in chem together,” said Jeff.

“That’s impossible,” said Joey, angry and confused, mind flashing him images of a tough looking dark haired guy about his age helping him find T2, and bent over textbooks and lab equipment, almost never talking, “You’re super old. Quit fucking with me.”

“Wait—Frank?” said Jeff, like everything was falling into place, “Frank Morrison?—is that who you all are? Frank, and Susie, and Julie—that Legion? The Legion I made a mural for? What the hell, Joey!” he snapped indignantly, like he genuinely couldn’t believe it, “I thought someone saw my mural here in the weird fake Ormond and stole the name for your group. You all were a cool gang back home!—you guys just run around murdering people for sport now? Was Julie Strand the girl who killed me the night I showed up and asked for directions? That’s so cold! We were kind of friends—I made you all your logo! And she still killed me after I told her I had a dog? I can’t believe Jules would do that!”

He sounded so sincere and angry and genuinely hurt Joey had no fucking clue what to say, even though he was way too old to really be Jeff Johansen, and the blonde girl was still on him and his arm was broken and she’d chewed on his hand which was fucked up, but she was still really hot, and was probably going to kill him, and he’d lost a fight which shouldn’t have been possible, and Jane Romero was here somewhere with a dead guy, and he was feeling a whole lot of things right now, and what the fuck was going on? _Why did I have to ask to take this one,_ thought Joey in a mixture of mournfulness and fear and anger, _Fuck, man._

“Rat bastard,” said the blonde girl angrily, making a motion like she was going to bring the knife down into his chest. Joey screamed.

“Wait-wait,” said Jeff, holding up a hand, “Don’t kill him!”

“I’m not,” said the girl, “I’m gonna cut off his hands so he can’t stab anyone anymore.”

 _Oh my fucking god I think she means it,_ thought Joey, sickened. _Help. Help—oh fuck, I need one of you guys to come help me, I’m in some real shit here. Will my hands come back after, like their stuff does?_ Then he remembered the super fucked up guy from earlier. _Oh god, it DOES come back, right?_ Frank had been kind of hurt after fighting Meg, but Joey didn’t know if he’d healed because he’d been wearing his mask ever since, even around them. _Oh god, oh god, oh god._

“Jeff!” said Joey, desperately appealing to the guy who was definitely not Jeff Johansen, but might help him if he acted like he thought he was, “Get the crazy bitch off me!”

“Hey,” snapped Jeff, pointing a finger at him, “Don’t call a woman a bitch. And you should at least have the common sense not to do it when she has the full power to kill you—I’d be begging _her_ if I were you. And don’t expect me to help; I’m not your friend—you all definitely nailed that one home.”

“But if you’re really Jeff,” said Joey, hope failing.

“Is this where you all ended up when you went missing back in 96?” asked Jeff, “Have you been here all this time?”

“What do you mean, ‘all this time’?” asked Joey, confused and still feeling the awful sharp stabbing running down his arm.

“—Oh!” said Jeff, ignoring him and suddenly turning the blonde girl with the knife with a completely different expression on his face, like he was scared, “The—the kid—did he live? Did we make it?”

The blonde girl nodded and started to tear up. “Yeah,” she said, voice cracking as she smiled, “We did it.”

_What the fuck is going on?_

Jeff beamed and the blonde girl stretched out her free hand and clasped his arm.

“I’m Kate, by the way,” said the girl, casting Joey a dubious look to make sure he knew she hadn’t forgotten about him before turning back to beam at Jeff like a ray of sunshine, “Kate Denson.”

“Jeff Johansen,” said Jeff, “But you heard that. Thank god—that was the worst thing I think…I ever…” he trailed off and shook his head, looking far away for a second, then smiled at the blonde again. “And thank you,” he said sincerely, “Sorry. It’s been,” he gestured at Joey, “Apparently Joey Harmin. Which is weird. But, thanks. For saving me just now—I think he was about to kill me.”

“No trouble,” said the blonde, smiling at Jeff, “I still owe you. I’m pretty sure I always will.”

Jeff shook his head, looking far away again, and sort of pained, but sincere. “Thanks for trying to help me back there, too. It helped.”

“Of course,” said Kate, “And you—Quentin would be dead without you. I can’t ever thank you enough.”

 _Maybe I can kick her off while she’s distracted,_ thought Joey, trying to shift his leg into a position with some leverage.

“I swear to god, move another fuckin’ inch and I’m gonna gut you like fish,” snapped the blonde girl, tone completely 180’d as she whirled on him. “’N I know you know what I mean, cause I’ve seen every one of y’all do it to my friends. Collar bone to hip. Don’t think I fuckin’ won’t.”

Joey stopped moving.

“Why are you still like eighteen?” asked Jeff, looking at him.

“Why am I—? Why are you forty?” asked Joey.

“Because it’s been twenty-two years, that’s what happens,” said Jeff, “And I’m not, quite forty.”

_It’s been fucking what._

“Fuck’r you from?” asked Kate, looking down at him.

“Ormond, Alberta,” said Joey.

“No, _when,_ dumbass,” said Kate.

 _I’m not dumb,_ thought Joey unhappily. “1996—what does that matter?”

“I’m from 2018,” said Kate.

Jeff nodded. “Me too.”

 _What the fuck—no way, they’re messing with you._ But why would they bother? _No, there’s no way._ Joey just lay there, staring at the both of them.

“That’s not possible,” said Joey after a few seconds.

“Yeah, it is pal,” said Kate, not very kindly. “Where’s Quentin? I know he’s here, but I haven’t seen him yet, and god help you if you laid a finger on him.”

“Who?” said Joey genuinely before his brain did catchup and informed him that by process of elimination, that was probably the super fucked up guy about his age. “The—the one who always looks like he doesn’t sleep?”

“Yeah,” said Kate, leaning menacingly closer.

“I didn’t hurt him!” said Joey, “I don’t know where he is! Jane Romero ran off with him.”

Kate blinked and looked at Jeff who looked similarly dumbfounded.

“I’m sorry,” said Kate, “Jane fuckin’ what did you just say.”

Joey swallowed nervously. “Jane…Romero.”

 

* * *

 

 

Running fast through the tall weeds and cattails, Jane Romero’s heart thudded in her chest and adrenaline shot through her veins. She could hear her heartbeat, impossibly loud and overwhelming, and growing in volume as the man with the knife came after her. _Come on, Jane,_ she thought, dodging and weaving through the tall grass, trying hard to lose their tail, holding the torn up young man she’d grabbed tightly to her chest and focusing on her next moves as they came, no time to plan for the real future, but determined not to be caught.

As she shot past some crates, Jane risked a glance behind her again, and then at the young man she’d rescued. He was staring at her in shock, but she didn’t seem to be hurting him by carrying him like this. _Hang on. Just a little further,_ thought Jane, trying hard to tap into energy she barely had, running even faster. Behind them, the man in the mask was coming fast, and Jane could hear her heart beating louder and louder—impossibly loud, like it was going to burst, and suddenly a security light shot on only a few feet to her right, and Jane changed directions, spinning on a dime and sliding behind some crates, crouched and breathing hard with the boy in her lap before dragging herself back to her feet and taking off in a new direction, far away from the large wood building and the light. As she ran, her heartbeat calmed, and she couldn’t see the man behind them anymore, but Jane kept on running until she reached the far end of a chunk of walls near in a little area close to an old shack up on a hill. This little gully seemed okay, and nothing was moving behind her, so Jane finally chose a chunk of wall hidden from the area she’d just run from and ducked into cover behind a corner and stopped, breathing hard.

“I think we lost him,” said Jane, looking down at the young man she’d carried. He was still staring at her like he couldn’t believe she was real. _Poor thing. He looks really torn up,_ thought Jane, taking in the sight slowly, _What did they do to you?_ Crouched in the grass, she still had him in her lap, and she could see him breathing fast and a little shaky. _I’d be scared too,_ thought Jane. “Are you alright young man?” she asked.

He stared at her, same confused and cornered expression on his face he’d had before, and there was a delay before he reacted. “Uh,” said finally, still staring at her, “I, uh.”

There were fresh cuts all over his face, and the t-shirt he was wearing was torn up the middle, almost but not quite all the way up. Beneath it he had more little bandages along his chest than she could easily count, and gauze wrapped around his stomach in a much larger swath. Whatever injury he had, it was bleeding through just a little. His jeans were torn down one leg, and there were bandages there too. More cuts along his face, taped shut, long gash after gash.

 _You poor thing,_ thought Jane, feeling sympathy and concern and the urge to comfort well up in her chest, _Someone really hurt you, didn’t they?_

Really, Jane had no idea what was happening. She wasn’t thinking about that much, and she hadn’t been thinking about it at all while running for her life, but it was there again now just a little, at the back of her mind, like it had been when she’d woken up. Everything had been foggy, and she’d felt strange, and heavy, and cold, and she’d opened her eyes to some waterlogged old wood and realized she was on a dock.

That had been strange, and at first Jane had thought it was a dream, because she’d never been somewhere like this, and she couldn’t think of any reason she would be, but she’d sat up and things had stopped being slow and off like they were in dreams, and she’d realized she was awake. That had been scary, because she’d had absolutely no memory of how she’d gotten there—not just to this specific strange dock in what must have used to have been a bog or a lake or a swamp or something, but because she’d been in the cold before—in New Jersey. And it wasn’t exactly warm here, but it was sort of muggy, and that shouldn’t have been possible. It was a totally different climate.

She’d been afraid, because she’d known she must have passed out and lost time somehow, but there had been no immediate threat to her, so Jane had gotten up and looked around. Hoping to find someone, or her phone, or a car—something. And she had, eventually, but not what she’d been looking for.

 _God, what is this?_ thought Jane, trying not to stare at the injuries on the young man she was holding. She had guesses. It could be any number of things—maybe some kind of human trafficking ring, or a gang war—maybe just some psychopath who caught people and hunted them for fun, like in a horror movie. Maybe the kid lived here, and it was his family, even—but then, that wouldn’t explain how or why she’d gotten there. _And where am I? How did I get so far south?_ wondered Jane again. _It’s impossible, unless I’ve lost a lot more time than I think. Okay, okay—that’s…that’s possible. What could do that? Drugs, trauma, or a head injury, right? I did feel strange when I woke up. My head seems okay, though, so probably drugs. Then I need to figure out what happened in the space I can’t remember. I think it’s safe to say the kid is on my side—he can’t have much affection for the people who did this to him, even if it is family, and I don’t think it is. He was struggling to get free, and he lied for me—tried to convince the guy in the mask he didn’t see anyone. So… So what? What do I…Okay. Okay. Think. Just. Just stay calm, Jane, and work this through. You’re not hurt. That’s a start._

She’d been silent for a couple of seconds, waiting for him to answer, but the young man still seemed to be having a hard time talking. He was just staring at her. Probably scared, and who could blame him? _If someone did this to him, he’s probably going to be scared of you, even if you’re trying to help. Be gentle,_ she told herself.

“I’m Jane,” said Jane, trying again since he hadn’t answered her, and smiling at him and doing her best to reassure him with her tone that she was on his side, voice low and soft. “What’ your name?”

The young man swallowed hard, still staring back like he was frozen, or hadn’t heard her, and then, after a second, he said “Are—are you really Jane Romero?”

 _Oh good—oh good, he’s seen the show—yes, that might help. That makes me sort of someone he knows. More trustworthy._ “Yes, that’s right. I am,” she said with a gentle smile, relieved he’d finally spoken a whole sentence. _Good, he’s thinking alright, and he doesn’t seem scared of you. He’s calming down._ “What’s your name?” she asked again.

“I, uh—Quentin. Smith,” said the young man, looking up into her face and turning red, “Thanks. For saving me back there.”

“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Quentin,” said Jane, doing her best to hold him gently in her lap, “I know this is very scary, and you’re hurt, but it’s going to be okay. I’m going to get us out of it. You just have to trust me. Can you do that?”

Jane wasn’t totally sure she could actually do what she was promising. And all her guessing aside, she didn’t even know where they were, let alone who the man in the mask had been, or why they’d been brought wherever here was, or what these people wanted, or how to get home, but she wasn’t hurt, and he was. That was the big thing. He needed help, so she needed to seem calm and capable and trustworthy. He needed someone to depend on right now.

The young man looked a little worried and he glanced around them for a second and then back at her. “Uhm,” said Quentin, “Do you know where we are?”

Jane looked at what she could see of the swamp. She had absolutely no idea, but she didn’t let on about how much that scared her. _Stay calm, stay level, seem like you can handle it,_ she told herself, _He might not know either, which would be bad, but just be rational. There has to be some way for you to help him and get you both out of this._ “No,” answered Jane, turning back to Quentin and deciding to be honest, “But that’s okay. We’re out in the open, so there’s nothing stopping us from getting up and walking out of here. Do you think you can walk alright? I can carry you if you don’t think you can.”

“Y-yeah, I uh, I think I can walk,” said Quentin nervously, glancing at her hands around his shoulders and legs and turning red again before looking back at her, “But, uh—there’s a fence. We can’t get past it.”

He pointed, and Jane looked. They were close enough to it that Jane could see part of it, and she took in the long, tall brick structure, and gave a nod. _That’s not good. At least it’s not so steep. It’s only brick—it might be scalable._ “Does it go all the way around?” she asked, turning back to Quentin.

He nodded, still looking pale and a little starstruck and nervous. _I wonder how long he’s been here,_ thought Jane, taking in the injuries again and the way he was looking from her to the fence, _Long enough to have been hurt and bandaged up by someone. Who? Was it the same man in the mask who hurt him? But if so, why? To be able to hurt him again? Some kind of punishment? What is this place? He definitely knows some of what’s going on, so it’s worth asking, but I shouldn’t push him,_ she added to herself, feeling his weak heartbeat thudding as she held him in her lap, _Poor thing’s been through enough._

“Do _you_ know where we are?” she asked him gently, tilting her head to get a couple of the pieces of dark hair that had come loose from her bun out of her face, “Or who the man in the mask that did this to you was?”

“Oh—,” said Quentin, eyes darting nervously from her face to back the way they’d come and then to her again, “That, uh—that wasn’t him. He—uh, the guy in the mask—he’s dangerous, and he’ll kill you if you get close and he sees you, but a different guy did this to me. Not him.”

“He’ll kill us?” asked Jane, feeling chilled. _Oh my god. You’ve seen him kill people before, haven’t you?_ she thought, taking in the look on his face as he nodded. _I can’t imagine. God, that must have been so awful. Okay, okay—hang on. Don’t lose yourself. What else did he just say?_ “A different guy hurt you though?” clarified Jane, feeling concerned and confused and worried, and now very distracted by the confirmed certainty that the man in the mask would kill her if he got the chance, but trying to not push Quentin. He still seemed very nervous, and she adjusted her hold on him a little, trying to make sure she wasn’t hurting any of the numerous injuries on him, doing her best while balancing him on her knees and holding him up with an arm around his shoulders and another under his legs. _How many of these masked people are there? And that one’s not as bad as one of the others?_ “How many of the dangerous people are there?” asked Jane, “Do you know?”

The young man got a very deeply troubled look on his face, almost like he felt bad and was dreading something, and he looked at her nervously. He opened his mouth to say something and then stopped and swallowed hard and tried again.

“There’s, uhm,” said Quentin, nervously, “There’s a lot of people like the guy in the mask here. I—I think like…seventeen?” he added unsurely after a moment of thought, “But they don’t all work together. It’s—uh…How…How long have you been here? You’re really Jane Romero?” he added after a second.

“I really am,” said Jane with a smile, almost feeling like laughing in spite of herself because he looked so absolutely unprepared for it to be her, and she was really nervous now too, and laughing was unfortunately one of her big two nervous reactions to things if she didn’t know what to say. “But it’s not such a big deal,” she added, trying to put him at ease, “I’m just a normal person, like you. Only, with a couple makeup artists and my name on a bunch of products I’ve only used once.” It wasn’t unusual for people to be excited or a little nervous around her since she’d become a celebrity, but he looked so absolutely astounded at her presence it was sort of endearing, but she also felt a little bad for him. _I’m really not that big a deal. After last night, who knows if I’m anything anymore…_ That thought was harder, and she didn’t like it. Jane closed her eyes for a second, trying to bury it.

“I haven’t been here long. Maybe half an hour,” said Jane, forcing herself back on task and vastly overestimating the time she’d been awake on purpose, because she felt like six minutes was going to sound a lot worse, and she didn’t want to scare him by telling him she’d just woken up on some chunk of wood here in the swamp. _I might should be honest, though,_ thought Jane, taking in the deep concern on his face, _He’s been here longer, and I don’t want him to assume I know things. Maybe I can think of a way to make it sound less…really bad._

“Here,” she said, shifting and gently setting the young man down on the grass. He moved awkwardly once he was free and sat opposite her, starting to bend his legs to sit crosslegged, and then wincing in pain and stopping. Instead, he sat with one leg she could see bandages on stretched out and the other folded, looking sort of miserable as he took in the state of his clothes and then glanced at her and flushed.

“Thanks again,” he said, awkwardly tucking his arms around himself to try and compensate for his barely functioning t-shirt, “For coming to my rescue.”

“Of course,” said Jane, trying to sound assured, and instead feeling guilt again, remembering her first impulse over the man with the knife, and how she’d hidden and left him. _I’m such a coward,_ her mind spat at her venomously, _Look at him. He thinks you’re so good because he doesn’t know you were going to leave him for dead, and you’re letting him think that._ She tried to shut out the accusations and focus on the situation instead. There was so much she wanted to ask. The young man looked so miserable and hurt, and she really wanted to know what had happened, but she knew from the look on his face and the way he was holding himself that he was probably praying she wouldn’t pry. So she didn’t.

 _Okay, let me think,_ thought Jane, looking him over and what she could see of where they were. Such a strange place. A marsh? A totally different climate than where she’d been before. That struck her again as the strangest thing. Weirder than being somewhere she didn’t recognize. _I have to have been moved so far,_ thought Jane, _Either that or I’ve forgotten days. At the least._

Jane was scared, but not as scared as she knew she should have been, because she was god only knew where with apparently seventeen masked psychopaths and an unknown number of other victims like this young man, no idea why she’d been taken or where or by whom, or what would happen, or how to escape, and while Jane knew all of this factually, the fear hadn’t really hit home. It was too surreal. None of it felt like it could actually be happening.

 _It is though,_ Jane tried to tell herself, _Don’t panic, but this is real. It’s real, and you need to figure out what to do. You have to take it seriously. He said ‘kill’—he said that man would kill you if he found you. Look at his face—he meant that. You have to be careful, no matter how unreal this feels._

“Don’t let this worry you too much, because I’m sure we can figure it out,” said Jane slowly, voice calming and secure and betraying none of the dread she actually felt, “But I’m not sure how I got here. I woke up over there,” she said, pointing past the shack on the hill, “On a dock. I’m not hurt, though. Did the same thing happen to you?” she asked him.

His eyes widened for a second and there was a look on his face she couldn’t quite interpret. Like he was a little hurt or pained, but not quite that either. He swallowed. “Not exactly,” he answered, “I’ve been here a lot longer.”

“Do you know how you got here, Quentin?” asked Jane gently. She’d spoken to enough people remembering traumatic events to know not to push him too fast, or too rough. Whatever had gone on here had been bad, and he didn’t look like he wanted to talk about it. _It would really help if he knows,_ thought Jane, _If he knows why he’s here, maybe I can figure out what happened to me. Maybe I can get us out. Even if he just knows what state we’re in, that would be something._

“Y-yeah,” said Quentin nervously, “I know how…But. Uh. Uhm…You. You, uh, don’t remember anything at all? About getting here yourself?”

“I was driving,” said Jane honestly, trying to recall just in case there was more there. There wasn’t though, just her in the car, driving down the coast, and then she’d woken up on the dock. No memory of passing out, or falling asleep, or anything, “And then…no,” she finished.

 “And you just woke up here in the swamp?” asked her injured companion, looking like he was really hoping she wasn’t going to say yes.

She nodded, though, because it had been what happened. _Why does that worry you so much,_ she wondered, studying his face. “It’ll be okay,” said Jane, concerned and trying to reassure him. He looked so worried. _You probably thought I was something else—like a cop. Someone who could really rescue you, but I’m not,_ thought Jane sadly, feeling bad that he was probably right, and she really wasn’t anything that was very good news for him. She’d gotten him out of one bad situation, but it probably wouldn’t last. She wasn’t the strongest human or the best at fighting, or even armed. _I’m not even much of a celebrity,_ thought Jane unhappily, _But—but I’ll do what I can, at least_. “Here, you’re hurt pretty bad, let me take a look,” she said, reaching for him.

Quentin shrunk away from the hand immediately, like he was afraid she might hurt him, so Jane stopped. _Poor thing. I wouldn’t hurt you. God, someone has though. Really, really badly._ “I’m—I’m okay,” he said hurriedly, turning red again, “I have some friends here. They already patched me up,” he added, gesturing to the bandage around his waist.

It was true, and that answered one question—who’d helped him, but he wasn’t okay.

“But your neck’s bleeding,” said Jane, voice warm and soft and worried, trying so hard to convince him through tone and words and actions that she wasn’t going to hurt him. He needed help—the cuts on his neck were bleeding through the bandages over them, probably from being dragged around by the psycho with the knife, but they weren’t the only thing. None of his wounds looked anything like close to healed.

At her words, Quentin put his hand up to his neck in surprise and drew it back bloody, looking at the red on his hand for a second.

“I can help you, if you’ll let me,” coaxed Jane. _Come on, trust me. I know I’m not the police, and you don’t know me, and you have every reason not to trust anyone, but I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to help. It’ll be okay._

“I’m—it’ll be okay,” answered Quentin uncomfortably, lowering the bloody hand, “It’s just little cuts.”

 _Damn it, come on kiddo,_ thought Jane, disappointed in herself for failing. What had he just said—his friends patched him up? That was something. Maybe if she could find them. “There are other people like you here?” asked Jane, worried but trying not to let him see how badly, “Are they in trouble too?”

 “Uh, yeah, there are a lot of us,” answered Quentin, looking more nervous than before, “My friend Kate is in here somewhere right now.”

“Kate,” repeated Jane thoughtfully. _Good, that’s something. Okay._ “What does she look like?”

“She’s blonde and tall,” said Quentin, sounding to Jane like he knew and liked this person quite well, “Curly hair, blue eyes. Sleeve tattoo on her left arm, with really pretty flowers and stuff.”

 _Alright. That shouldn’t be hard to pick out. Progress. What else?_ She needed as much information as she could get, but she also needed to find a way out of here. And he really needed those injuries looked at. He was really hurt. _Okay, don’t panic. Stay calm. Be someone he can trust,_ she told herself, forcing her emotions to stay as level as she could. “Well, we’re going to find a way out of here together,” said Jane reassuringly to Quentin, “And then I’ll go back and look for your friend. Now, you said there are a lot of people like the guy with the mask. Do you know who any of them are? Or what they want?”

“Uh, yeah,” choked out the young man _._ He looked intensely nervous and uncomfortable, and one of his hands started to fidget.

 _That’s not good,_ thought Jane, concerned, _What are you so scared of? Did I do something?_

“I, uh, th-this is going to sound insane, but it’s the truth,” said Quentin anxiously.

“Okay,” said Jane, voice calming and kind. _Make sure he knows you’ll believe him_ , Jane told herself, trying to remember everything she’d studied preparing for interviews and giving advice to people who’d been through especially traumatic events in their past, _A lot of the time people talk about bad things, really bad things, people don’t believe them. He’s scared of that._ “It’s okay. Just take your time,” said Jane.

Quentin took a deep breath. “Umh. You and me—all of us. We’re. Not…” He stopped and swallowed hard, hand still fidgeting, then tried again. “Okay. Uhm. I—I’ve been here for a while,” said Quentin, stealing nervous and miserable glances her way every few seconds and sounding for all the world like he wished he was anywhere but here, saying this to her, “And. Uh. This place isn’t normal. Like…it…it isn’t like normal life? It’s like…It’s like a time-loop, sort of?” he offered, checking nervously for her response.

_What._

“Like in a story,” he hurried, looking more miserable than before, “–Like _Groundhog’s Day,_ kind of? It, uh.” Now that he’d really got going, he was trying to maintain eye contact, even though he looked like he wished he could die. “It repeats. Only, we all remember it. But we end up in places like this—like where you and me are right now, and we try to escape, but a lot of the time we get killed by things like the guy in the mask. But if we do, we come back for the next cycle, and it happens again and again and again.”

 _What,_ thought Jane again, blinking and trying really hard to run what he’d said through her head and interpret it. _I was expecting to take this literally, but of course he can’t—he couldn’t mean…Uhm. Alright. So... Okay, so whatever happens to him, he feels…trapped? And like it won’t end? Or… Does he mean he sincerely thinks he’s actually died before? I can’t tell. Oh boy. Okay, what do I say? He’s finally starting to trust me, and I don’t want to ruin that, but he’s maybe hallucinating, or been drugged, and just confirming it wouldn’t be helpful to, oh hell he’s looking at me I have to say something—_

“Like…hell?” asked Jane, trying hard not to attach any specific emotion to her voice.

“Sort of,” he answered, sounding like he had to know how that sounded. “See that,” he added, trying his best just the same and pointing to a grim looking huge meat hook which was hanging from its pole only about ten feet away, “The guys in the masks and the other monsters, if they catch you, they’ll put you up on one of those hooks, and if no one saves you in time, you’ll get killed by this…Thing. We aren’t really sure what it is—but it’s huge, and it’s what took us all and brought us here, and it lives up in the sky and looks sort of like a massive spider. It’s maybe a demon, or some Cthulhu monster thing. That’s what we think.”

 _Okay, he’s clearly delusional,_ thought Jane, watching his face for any sign of insincerity and not finding one. He looked nervous and unhappy, but not like he was lying. _He knows he sounds crazy, but he thinks it’s true._

He shot her an anxious glance, trying to read her reaction.

“Okay,” she said consolingly, leaning over and putting a hand on his forehead. _He’s hot. Maybe he’s hallucinating._ “You don’t feel too good.”

“You don’t believe me, do you?” asked Quentin, sounding hurt, but at least not pulling away from her this time.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” answered Jane carefully, trying to give him as much benefit of the doubt as she could afford to, “But I think we’ve both been drugged. And you’re pretty hurt.”

“I—I’m not drugged,” said Quentin, looking at the hand on his forehead and sounding lost. He turned away from her and pointed to a contraption of some kind sitting up on a hill opposite the shed. “See that thing with the light pole on it?” he asked, pointing at it.

“Yes,” answered Jane, following his motion.

“Well, there are doors we can open in the wall,” said Quentin, “But only if we power them. It takes five of those generators to power a door. I know this sounds probably stupid and crazy to you, but we need to do that. Otherwise the guy you saw in the mask is going to find us eventually and kill us. This is your first time, and people…” he stopped for a second and then kept going, “…uhm. People hardly ever make it the first time. But I ran into you early, so—so I’m sure we can.”

He seemed desperately hopeful and at the same time completely sure Jane wouldn’t believe him as he looked back at her. _I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,_ thought Jane hopelessly, _He can’t possibly be right about this, but maybe he’s sort of right. At least he did mention a door. Maybe even if he’s drugged and hallucinating, some of that’s right. And I don’t want him to think I think he’s crazy. God damn it, how am I supposed to answer that?_ She bit her lip, thinking hard. _Come on Jane, think._ “You’re sure?” she asked him, “You’ve opened doors here before?”

Quentin nodded, looking hopeful but also ready to be crushed.

“I can show you one of the doors,” he offered, “If that would help. We can’t open it right now, but I can show you it’s real. There’s one right up there,” he added, pointing towards the shack on the hill, “I saw it when I first got here. I’m—I’m really sorry,” he added, “I know this is a lot, and you don’t know me, and you probably think I’m insane, but I want to help you. Everything that’s real is so crazy, I don’t know how to explain it any better, but I don’t want you to get killed. I—I realize I sound ridiculous, believe me, but I’m trying. And if you can just give me a chance, I promise, I’ll do everything I can to keep you alive.”

He looked sincere, and almost desperate, leaning towards her as he said it. Jane wanted to believe him—at least that he thought he was telling the truth. _He can’t be right, but he thinks he is,_ thought Jane, _And I do trust you, I think. I trust that you don’t want to hurt me, whatever else is going on._

“Okay,” said Jane, smiling at him gently and standing up, then offering him a hand. He took it, and she pulled him carefully to his feet. “I trust you, Quentin. I hope you know you can trust me, too. And I’ll do everything I can to make sure you get out of this okay. Are you sure you can walk alright?”

He nodded, flushing again. “Yeah—I’m okay. It…it looks worse than it is,” he said awkwardly. He cleared his throat. “Uhm, this way. I’ll show you. But we should be careful—Legion—the guy with the mask—he’s probably looking for us.”

“Okay,” said Jane, turning and scanning the rest of the area watchfully, looking for signs of the man from earlier and not seeing him. _He’s here somewhere though._ “Are you sure you don’t need help?” asked Jane again, turning back to Quentin and following him up the hill. He was up and doing it, but he looked unsteady, and there was a concentrated look on his face like he was having to work hard, and was probably in pain.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” said Quentin, trying to give her a reassuring smile, “It isn’t far.”

 

* * *

 

 

“You’re really going to stick to that? And you’re totally, 100% sure?” asked maybe actually Jeff Johansen, looking more like he just couldn’t believe it than that he specifically thought Joey was lying.

“Look, it’s Jane Romero, I know what she looks like,” said Joey, a little miffed, “It’s either her or a crazy-good lookalike.”

“Is that possible?” asked Jeff, turning to the blonde girl who was still sitting on Joey and brandishing his knife, “I mean she’s…” he glanced at Joey and then back at Kate, “…Dead.”

 _She’s what?_ Joey felt his heart skip, which wasn’t something he’d felt in quite a while. _What? Why would he say that—even…even if he is from twenty years from now, and I think that’s crazy, why would she be dead?_

“What do you mean ‘dead’?” asked Joey, genuinely concerned. He’d really, really liked Jane’s show.

“She killed herself,” said Jeff, looking back at the blonde for confirmation, “Right? Drove off the highway into the ocean in early December after that show with her mom?”

Kate nodded, looking sad. “That’s right, I think. But they never found her body.”

 _She did what? _No. No way. Jane Romero wouldn’t kill herself.

“You’re wrong,” said Joey angrily, “She wouldn’t do that.”

Kate gave him a funny look but didn’t say anything. It made him mad, like she thought there was no point in even acknowledging his disagreement. _Why would you be right? Just because you were there doesn’t mean you know her better—I bet you don’t even watch the show!_

“Could she have ended up here?” asked Jeff, “Instead of…the afterlife?”

“I guess,” said Kate, “Sort of what happened to Tapp, I think? He said he got shot right before coming here.”

“But I didn’t die, to…to the best of my knowledge,” said Jeff, suddenly really nervous sounding. “This isn’t the afterlife, right?”

“I don’t think so,” agreed Kate, similarly perturbed by the idea, “I wasn’t dead either. Unless I just had a brain aneurism chilling with my guitar and didn’t notice.”

Neither of the two people above Joey looked like they were loving this conversation a whole lot. _Well I’m not dead,_ thought Joey with absolute certainty, _We just followed Frank into the woods. All four of us were totally fine. Maybe that’s why they ended up as the ones getting hunted—because they’re dead._

“No. I’m pretty damn sure I as alive,” said Kate after a second, more conviction this time, “Almost everyone was. Ace, Dwight, Jake, Claudette, Nea, Feng, David, Meg. Quentin and Laurie and Adam were in trouble, but not dead yet. And you and I were alive. Even Tapp wasn’t dead-dead, probably. Just close to it. Just injured. Makes more sense if Jane just got snagged mid-wreck, or it’s a lookalike, or Joey here’s just fucking with us because he doesn’t want his hands chopped off,” she added in a hostile tone, glaring at him.

“I’m not lying!” protested Joey, very much wanting to keep his hands, “It was Jane Romero, and she ran away with your friend.”

“Either way, I guess I gotta look,” said Kate unhappily to Jeff, “Or…well, could you? I can’t really leave stabby little psycho boy here alone or he’s gonna go right back to killing people. I mean, I guess I could slit his throat, but I don’t really know for sure what would happen.”

“Hey—wait!” said Joey, feeling the threat like a phantom sensation in his neck, “You said—”

“I’m not killing you,” said Kate, looking away from Jeff and down at him, “Right now, anyway. Calm down and shut up.”

Jeff glanced over at Joey for a second. “I can stay with him. You really want to go after Quentin, and I think with him having the broken arm I can manage fine.”

“You sure?” asked Kate, unconvinced, “You’re pretty well stabbed.”

Jeff looked down at the cuts he could see, although Joey had gotten him twice in the back. “Well, yeah, but this place is weird, and I’m doing okay,” said Jeff, “I mean, it hurts like hell, but I can move fine, and if I’ve got the knife, I’ll be okay. Pretty easy to stop an unarmed guy with a broken arm if he tries anything.” He noticed a flicker of uncertainty cross Kate’s face as she looked from him to Joey. “Hey,” said Jeff, giving a reassuring smile, “I’m not gonna let him go. You can trust me.”

Kate thought for a second and nodded. “Okay,” she said, passing him the knife, “I do trust you. Thanks.”

 _Oh thank god,_ thought Joey, watching, _Maybe Jeff’ll let me go, or I can get the knife back and stab him and get the fuck out of here. He’s not batshit crazy._

Jeff knelt, one heavy knee up on Joey’s chest and the other beside him, knife up and ready, eyes on him carefully. “Alright, good luck,” said Jeff to Kate, “We’ll be here.”

“I’ll be back quick,” said Kate. She turned to Joey. “I’m bein’ lenient when you don’t deserve it because I’m nice, you sick psychopath killer boy, but you touch—and I mean one single _scratch_ on Jeff here, and I will kill you for real. I’ve had it up to here with all of y’all,” she said, motioning to a height far above her own head, “And next time someone touches one of my friend’s I’m gonna snap, and then their neck’s gonna snap. Am I clear?”

Joey believed she meant it, and he nodded, still with every intention of trying to escape and attack Jeff if he had to, but keeping in the back of his mind that that meant he’d have to do something about Kate later too. _Shit, I don’t know how to fix my arm. If I had the knife maybe I could still get her, though._ Joey hadn’t broken an arm before. Or anything—not like this. He’d sprained ankles and taken plenty of hits in highschool, but snapping a bone was different. The pain in his arm was immense. A constant wave of pain he thought was awful until he moved and the addition pain the motion triggered forcibly pounded in the fact that the I’m-Not-Moving pain wasn’t awful at all, not compared to what it could be.

He had no idea what he’d do if he could get away from Jeff and maybe take him out, but that didn’t matter—he’d figure it out. Anything was better than being stuck here on the ground as some kind of prisoner. _I’m not getting beat or pushed around,_ thought Joey, _I’m Legion now—I’m better than this._

Kate disappeared down one of the ramps leading up to the second story of the house, and Jeff watched her go for a second, then looked down at Joey.

“You—you’re gonna let me go, right?” asked Joey, going for the easiest way from point A to point B first.

“No,” said Jeff, a little indignant and also like he wanted Joey to lower his voice, “No way—I promised her. Besides, you don’t have a leg to stand on with me right now.”

 _Shit, I thought he might,_ thought Joey, considering the best way to try and fight him. It hurt to move his right arm at all, and he was pinned down by the knee on his chest. He might be able to kick him off, but it was going to hurt. _He’ll stab me, too. I need to get the knife back._

It was so fucking embarrassing. This wasn’t supposed to be able to happen! It wasn’t just that they were armed, or tough—the Entity had made them strong. None of them were supposed to be _able_ to lose fights. _How did I?_ He had to have seriously fucked up, and he knew it. For the first time he was glad none of the others were around to help him, because if they had been, they’d have known he was the one who made the biggest mistake. Not Susie. Not Julie, certainly not Frank. Him. _I’m not the weakest!_ he thought, furious with himself. How had he lost?! It shouldn’t have been possible.

 _It’s not possible, what did I do? How did this happen?_ He’d known, when the blonde girl was on top of him, chewing on his hand, that she was out of her fucking mind and absolutely certain she was going to beat him into the ground, and when he’d realized that she was that sure of herself, he’d been afraid it might actually happen. But he shouldn’t have been worried about it! It was impossible to lose, right? And—and even if he’d been afraid he might lose, he shouldn’t have been able to—right? That wasn’t how it worked.

_Fuck, fuck—god damn it!_

Joey tried to move under the knee and his arm shot stabs of pain up his shoulder in protest and he sucked in a sharp breath and held still again.

“Look,” said Jeff from above him, his tone a little bit less standoffish.

Joey glanced up at him and noticed he had a pretty different expression on his face now. Almost like he felt bad for him, which made Joey kind of angry. _I’m not pitiful. I’m not weak. I’m not the weak one. I—I…I’m…I’m not—I’m not! Fuck you for looking at me like that._

“I’m not gonna let you go,” said Jeff, sounding tired but less hostile, “But I won’t let her kill you either, okay?”

Although he was still mad, Joey immediately felt immense relief. Strong enough relief that he forgot for a second he’d been mad at all. But relief at mercy was weak, and he wasn’t supposed to act like that. “So, what?” asked Joey, trying not to sound genuinely worried about the prospect, “You cut off my hands and leave me here?”

“She’s not gonna cut off your hands with this little hunting knife,” said Jeff in a tone like _come on,_ which also annoyed Joey, because it made him feel like Jeff thought he was stupid for believing she’d do it.

_I’m not stupid. You don’t know she didn’t mean it—I think she did. She could get through my wrists if she tried—I know it, I’ve cut through bone with it. It’s tough, but you can do it if you try hard enough._

“I don’t know what,” added Jeff after a second, “Maybe we just light things up and all get out of here alive for once. Maybe she’ll want to…I don’t know. Take you with us as leverage next time we have to deal with one of your friends.”

 _WHAT._ “Are you crazy?” asked Joey, freaking out a little, “You can’t capture me and take me back with you! Besides, I can’t go through the gate, so it wouldn’t work anyway.” That was true, and it made him feel a bit better as soon as he’d said it.

“Really?” asked Jeff, surprised, “I know you can’t get us when we go through, but you guys can’t go past the gate at all?”

“No, stupid,” said Joey, “Of course not.”

“That’s sort of a shame,” said Jeff, looking disappointed, “I was kind of hoping we would. Maybe if we took you back with us, we could talk some sense into you.”

“What do you mean, ‘talk some sense’?” asked Joey angrily, glaring up at the man on him, “Try to make me join you guys and get hunted?”

Jeff looked at him for a moment, hard to read expression on his face, and didn’t say anything. He turned his attention to the knife for a second, holding it in his hand and turning it to look. _Is he threatening me?_ wondered Joey, a little bit nervous at the thought of being cut up by Jeff. If he tried it, Joey would definitely fight him, but Jeff was big, and Joey’s arm was broken. Usually being Legion here felt so big and strong and dangerous and tough and above all, assured, but for once, if it came to violence, Joey wasn’t sure what would happen.

“What happened to you?” asked Jeff, and he didn’t look angry. He just looked confused, and kind of sad. Neither of which Joey liked. “You were a cool guy in highschool. You were smart—lots of skills. I remember you were the only guy in shop that could ever figure out curves with the handsaw without having to spend hours on a sander afterword.”

 _What?_ wondered Joey, trying to get a read on Jeff. _What does shop class have to do with anything. Sure, I was good at that._

“Why?” asked Jeff, looking down at him. He sounded kind of hurt.

 _What do you mean, ‘why’? Stop looking at me like that._ “Why?” repeated Joey.

“I’m just trying to understand,” said Jeff, sounding lost, “Sincerely. I wouldn’t have believed it if someone else had told me. I knew all four of you. Susie’s really here killing people too? _Susie?_ ”

Joey nodded. She wasn’t great at it, but she’d got the job done a couple times now. And not just her stupid freebies with Meg.

Above him, Jeff looked confused, and sad, and a lot of things Joey wouldn’t have really expected. Now that he was stuck looking at him so long up close, he really did look a lot like Jeff Johansen too—older, sure, and with a big scar over one of his eyes and a beard, but…

“She used to steal candy from the nurse’s office to give to Julie. I bumped into her once doing that in the hall,” said Jeff, like he was only just now remembering, and trying hard to reconcile the past her to what he’d seen,  expression far away and lost, “And I remember I just said something like ‘Didn’t see a thing’ to let her know I wasn’t going to snitch on her, and kept walking, but she came after and caught up to me and gave me a sucker as thanks before taking off.”

That sounded like Susie. Jeff looked kind of rough and out of it, staring at nothing. It probably was a pretty ideal time to attack him if Joey was going to do it, but he hesitated, thinking about the pain in his arm and the way Jeff had sounded. _Come on,_ he told himself, _Just do it, quick. Kick him, and make a grab for the knife._

“I don’t get it,” said Jeff, looking back at him, and Joey kicked himself internally, having missed the opening, but also feeling a little relieved, even though he didn’t want to admit it, because it would have felt kind of like cheating to do it just then. And not a smart, good kind of cheating. A backstabbing kind. Even more than that, though, more than relief or frustration, Joey was feeling something else. A feeling he couldn’t really place, but he didn’t like, and it was moving over him slowly as Jeff spoke, making him feel like he was sinking slowly into mud.

 _I’m feeling conflicted about killing him,_ thought Joey, trying to rationalize, _Probably, right? Because it might actually be Jeff, and we were sort of okay, back in the day. He did make the sick mural for us. That’s not so weird. That’s normal. I can get past that._

“Do you really not care?” asked Jeff very genuinely, like he really was trying to understand, meeting his eyes, “You don’t mind killing us at all?”

Jeff stopped talking, waiting for an answer this time. Eyes fixed on Joey.

 _Uh._ Well? _No,_ thought Joey, _It’s just how it is._ He could hear things Frank had said playing in his head. _“Some people do what it takes and fight hard, and they end up on top, and some people don’t. If you aren’t cutthroat, the world still will be, and you’ll just end up dead. You do what you have to, and fuck anyone who isn’t tough enough to make it themselves. You owe nothing. Watch your own back. Everybody thinks they can fuck you over and take what they want, but they can’t—not anymore. We’re stronger together. Enough getting used. We’re going to be the ones taking this time, and we got a lot of backpay on life to collect.”_

“Survival of the fittest,” answered Joey, trying to sum it up in the simplest way possible. That sounded right, didn’t it? Strong, and factual.

Jeff stared at him for a second. “Wow,” he said after a moment, voice hollow, “Really? That’s all it took for this to be okay?”

Joey shrugged with his good shoulder. It still hurt.

“Then why should I stop Kate from killing you?” asked Jeff. “You lost to her, didn’t you?”

 _Wait,_ thought Joey, suddenly less assured. He didn’t know how to answer that.

Jeff waited a second for an answer, and when he realized he wasn’t going to get one, he shook his head.

“We look out for our own—for each other,” said Joey, trying to find something good to say, “Everyone else is on their own. If you’re in the way, what happens, happens. We don’t owe anyone shit but each other. If you guys can’t make it like we can, that’s your problem. Everyone is enemies, and there’s not room for us all at the top.”

Jeff started at him for a second, eyes searching, expression wounded, and beyond that hard to read. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to die?” asked Jeff after a second, holding up the knife and looking at it.

Joey felt his pulse quicken. _He’s threatening to kill me? He…Jeff…Jeff wouldn’t do that, right? He’s way too soft, right?_

“It hurts,” said Jeff, looking back down at him, “Not in a way I can describe right, but I’m going to try. The way you guys do it?” he added, bringing the knife up to his collar bone. “The first thing you feel is afraid, because you know the person on top of you doesn’t care what happens to you. And worse, that they want to hurt you. They’re going to hurt you, and nothing you say is going to make them stop, because you don’t matter.”

 _I don’t like this,_ thought Joey, struggling a little to shift under Jeff, actually trying to get free for the first time. Jeff moved and for a second, Joey thought he was going to stab him, but he just increased the pressure from his knee, making Joey’s chest ache a little under its weight.

“It’s not like anything else—not even a fight,” continued Jeff, voice harder now, intense, “Because you haven’t done anything. They want to hurt you because of who they are—not something you did. So you’re scared. You probably try to plead anyway, because you know _you_ would listen, and that no matter how angry or mean or vicious you ever were, you’d just have to listen to someone begging you to stop. That knowing someone’s name, or that they had a kid, or that they were so scared to die that they were begging—that any of that would make it hard for you to kill them. So, you try to get through to them, even though the person killing you isn’t like you at all.”

Had people done that? Joey’s mind flashed back, thinking of trials he’d been in. He’d killed the guy that had punched Julie, and that had been fun—he hadn’t begged or anything, but he’d struggled, and he’d screamed. Joey was seeing that now.

“The way you all kill people,” continued Jeff, “Where you gut us? The knife goes in at the collar bone. It hurts so much. We’ve always been stabbed before. Usually when we’re struggling with you right before you kill us, but always at some point. But this—this hurts more. The blade you’ve got is jagged, and it saws at things when it goes in and tears, which is always awful, but when it hits your chest it’s worse, because you have things in your chest you know you can’t live without, and you’re scared.”

“Stop it,” said Joey, struggling harder to get the knee off of his chest.

Jeff shook his head at him and kept going. “You usually hit a lung,” explained Jeff, a little louder, but voice still firm, “and that makes it hard to breathe. It’s a weird feeling when your organs are hurt, because you know something’s really wrong, but you don’t know how wrong, because it’s never happened before, and you can’t see it, and the pain shoots out from here,” he continued, pointing to a spot on his chest with the knife, “And it goes all along your shoulders and down your backbone, and up your neck, and down your arms to your fingertips. Sometimes I can even feel it in my toes. And there’s a second you’re so scared by the fact you’ve been stabbed in the chest that you can’t fight back anymore and you just stare at the knife and the blood, and then you want to try and fight again because you’re so scared to die, and then the person with the knife rips downward.”

Jeff gestured, a harsh, fast tug, moving the knife along his ribcage and towards his stomach in quick, jerky motions.

 _That’s not—_ But Joey was seeing the blonde girl who fought back hard and had stabbed him in the chest with a nail, and the way she’d clawed at his face when he was dragging a knife through her chest, and how it had been funny to him that she’d still been fighting. _‘This is how you stab someone’,_ that’s what he’d thought doing it. And he’d been proud, because it had hurt when she stabbed him—a lot, and she’d run off and gotten away, and he’d been embarrassed, but when he’d finally caught up to her, he’d won.

“You don’t cut,” said Jeff, “You rip, and tear—just, through everything.” His voice was hurt, like he couldn’t believe it. “I can’t describe how that feels, Joe. I can’t. It hurts, but there’s not a word for the kind of hurt. It hurts too much. And you aren’t in control of anything your body does. It’s like it breaks you. The pain destroys your body and it just jerks and moves and contorts and all you can do is feel yourself being cut because anything else is too much anymore. It’s so fucking scary to hurt so much you can’t even move, or look, or make your body stop moving on its own. You can’t understand that. We’d already be dead after the first stab, but it’s not enough. The person with the knife keeps going, just for fun, all the way down to the hip, through stomach, and intestines, and it kills you,” said Jeff, moving the knife down along his body as he spoke, “Being opened up like that. The pain is what kills you. Do you have any idea how that feels?”

 _Fuck,_ thought Joey, afraid now because of the look on Jeff’s face, _He’s going to do that to me for revenge, isn’t he?_

Joey was scared, and he was seeing the guy with glasses who couldn’t run fast and was too weak to be good at fighting back, and the way he’d tried to shield his face, and thinking that dying was going to be like that, because his arm was broken and something was wrong with him today and he wasn’t fighting right. He was losing when it shouldn’t be possible. And then he was thinking about the way the guy with glasses had known for sure he was dead too, before Joey had even stabbed him the first time.

And then he remembered that he _had_ killed Jeff once. And Jeff had begged him to stop.

“Wait,” said Joey, swallowing hard, good arm already half-raised to try and catch the knife.

“No, you’re misunderstanding,” said Jeff, voice exhausted and rough like he might cry, letting the arm with the knife slacken, “I’m not going to kill you. I’m not even going to hurt you. I just want to understand how you can possibly do something like that to someone, over and over and over again, and not feel a thing. Because I can’t even talk about it.”

Joey looked up at him in surprise. He’d fully expected Jeff to go right into carving him up. He wanted to be relieved, but he was afraid to actually believe him that he wasn’t going to kill him. It was hard, trying to make his heart slow down and fight back some of the fear. _You’re not? You…really? You just want to know why I…?_ He was feeling a lot of fear himself, and thinking, because of Jeff, for the first time for real about the other people and their fear in a different way than he usually did. _It’s…that’s not fair. I’m not…_

He was hearing Susie’s voice in his head. _“There’s no one left to be afraid of because we’re the badguys!”_

 _But we’re not,_ thought Joey desperately, _I don’t feel guilty. I don’t. This is how it has to be. We do what we have to to look out for each other. If other people can’t do the same, that’s not on us. It’s rough for everyone. We’re the only people we’re accountable to. Just the Legion._

“I thought I sort of knew you, Joey Harmin,” said Jeff, expression searching as he looked down at him, “I at least thought you were a type of person. Kind of like I was. I didn’t know you well, but we didn’t seem so different. You really don’t give a shit who you hurt? Or how much?”

He paused, waiting for an answer, and Joey didn’t know what to say so he didn’t.

“–For fuck’s sake,” said Jeff, maybe angry but more upset, and too upset to be yelling, “Some of these people are as young as you are, and you’re carving up girls too! Like it’s nothing at all.”

“It’s complicated,” said Joey, trying hard not to feel any guilt and not to think about any of the girls he’d carved up, “—You all aren’t any different!” he added defensively, “That Kate girl chewed on my hand, and was ready to kill me!”

“Because you’ve fucking murdered her and her friends multiple times!” snapped Jeff, angry now, “What the fuck do you mean she’s no different?! Anyone wouldn’t hesitate to rain hell down on someone who’d murdered their friends in front of them. What the fuck’s wrong with you!”

“Nothing!” shouted back Joey. _I don’t know! I don’t know what’s wrong with me—shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up! I don’t want to hear this. He’s wrong—he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t get what it’s like! We do what we have to! It’s always been rough, but now we’re on top, and we’ve got each other, and that’s all that matters—no one else—nothing—we have to, or we’d get in trouble. And that’s…it’s…_

“Okay,” said Jeff a lot quieter, giving up.

“Okay?” asked Joey after a second, not sure what that meant. “What do you mean, ‘okay’?”

“I was hoping you’d give me a reason to think you weren’t as bad as I thought,” answered Jeff honestly, “Because I thought you couldn’t be. Not if you were Joey Harmin. But I was wrong.”

That kind of stung, and Joey didn’t want it too, so he tried hard to make himself mad instead. _‘Not as bad as you thought’? The fuck do you get off judging me! Who do you think you are?! I’m not accountable to you—you’re not god, you’re not my mom, you’re just some nobody who worked at the video store! Talking down to me like a disappointed parent—what the fuck gives you the right?_

“Yeah, I’m not a pussy,” said Joey, trying to sound tough, “I do what I have to.”

“It’s not weak to not love killing people, or to choose not to do it,” said Jeff, like Joey had just told him something as stupid as arguing that the sun was cold, “Or to protect them instead, or to try to care about everyone instead of just your three friends. I don’t know when you started thinking it was so cool to be a shitty person, but you should knock it off before Kate gets back. She doesn’t have any memories of you to get conflicted over like an idiot, so she’ll probably be a lot more rational about this,” he added unhappily.

 _That’s not fair,_ thought Joey again, angry that Jeff sounded like he thought he was stupid, and trying hard not to feel anything at all over how disappointed and sad Jeff looked. _Why should I care?_

He lashed out his hand, trying to grab at the knife, and Jeff leaned out of the way easily. As he did, Joey tucked in one of his feet and twisted to kick Jeff, which sent pain shooting down his broken arm. Jeff caught the foot in his free hand as it came and held it, knife up in the other.

“Stop that!” he snapped, “I don’t want to have to hurt you for real.”

“What do you care?” asked Joey through gritted teeth, fighting through the pain in his arm and trying to jerk his leg free from Jeff’s grip.

“Because I don’t want you to—” Jeff stopped and struggled with him for a second, trying to keep the hand with the knife out of grabbing distance while pinning down Joey and holding back attempts to kick him. After a second of taking some not very forceful kicks to his side, Jeff, moved and sat on him like Kate had, using his whole bodyweight to pin him down, and holding the knife in his left hand so he could use his right to keep Joey’s unbroken arm down at his side.

Fighting had hurt way more even than Joey expected, so with Jeff’s weight on his chest making it hard to breathe and crackles of pain shooting down his arm and into his chest, Joey gave up and went still under him, breathing hard, embarrassed and infuriated and in a lot of pain and feeling something else unhappy that he couldn’t quite name.

“Look,” said Jeff, breathing hard himself, “Just quit fighting, okay? I don’t want to stab you, and I’m not going to let Kate kill you or cut off your hands, but if you keep this up, I’m going to have a harder time convincing her to take it easy on you. She’s a nice woman, so she gets mad when you guys hurt the rest of us.”

“What do you care if she kills me?” asked Joey sullenly, “I thought you decided I wasn’t worth it.”

“I didn’t say that,” said Jeff, sounding exhausted, “I said I was hoping you’d do something to show me you weren’t as bad as you act, and you didn’t. But I’m an idiot and an optimist, so I’m not done looking. Just—cut it with the fighting, please. I really don’t want to stab you.”

 _Why not?_ wondered Joey, _I’d sure as hell want to stab you if you’d been me._ It was a kind of impulsive thought, but once he’d had it, it didn’t go away, and he felt bad, and bad enough he couldn’t easily just pretend he didn’t.

 _That’s not fair,_ Joey told himself, _If I don’t do my job and hurt people, I could end up hurt, or dead._

That was true, but he knew it wasn’t the whole truth. None of that had meant he had to enjoy it, but he had. And there wasn’t any getting away from that or making it prettier than it was, and in front of Jeff, he was suddenly having a really hard time making that okay.

 _I’m not the badguy,_ thought Joey, _I’m not._

“What?” asked Jeff, catching the look on his face. He glanced from Joey to the arm hanging limp at his side. “The arm hurting you pretty bad?”

He sounded like he cared, and Joey didn’t like that. He didn’t want him to, because there was a kind of reciprocity implied in someone caring about you.

“Yeah,” answered Joey, because it was true and a lot better than owning up to the real reason he felt bad and had looked unhappy. It was just physical pain. Normal. _I’m not the badguy. Or if I am, that’s fine. It—it is, right? Franks says we do what we have to and we look out for each other, and he’s always looked out for us. We’re okay. It’s fine. It’s fine, because it means I’m strong and nobody can tell me what to do or push me around. We’re all the badguy to somebody, I’m just stronger than them and they’re mad that they aren’t the one on top this time. Like Frank says. That’s why it’s okay—they’d do the same if they were me. They just—_

“I don’t know how to help you,” said Jeff, eyes on his arm for a few seconds, “Other than to just have you keep it still.”

 _Why do you care?_ thought Joey miserably, wishing he didn’t, _Why do you care when you’re so mad that I killed you, and killed the other people, even the girls._ Everything was suddenly getting a little too much. Joey had never really liked actually killing people himself, but he’d tried to remember it differently after the deed was done—to erase the way it had felt and pretend it had been different, but that wasn’t working right now. He was feeling ugly, old things he’d thought he’d gotten rid of, feelings like rot in the middle of his gut, and he hated it. It was confusing, and overwhelming and it felt bad, and like too much to handle. He didn’t want to look at it. _I’m not bad—I’m not stupid. It’s not that simple. I…_

Over him, hand closed around the half-forgotten knife, Jeff was still studying his broken arm thoughtfully. There was blood running down Jeff’s shirt from places Joey had cut him, but he didn’t seem to notice it. Joey did, though, and he saw that Jeff had one of his arms pulled in tight to his side, probably because that was helping the injury in the shoulder to hurt less. Since this whole ordeal had started, Joey had been thinking about his broken arm and the way it hurt non-stop, but he hadn’t thought about the cuts on Jeff even once, not until now.

 _I’m not all bad, I’m not,_ thought Joey, _—I—I didn’t cut up that guy earlier, and I might have let him go._ That wasn’t true though, and he knew it. The dude had been too hurt for him to want to have fun with him, but he’d been going to hook him just the same. _I might have let Jane Romero go,_ he tried. That might be true, and it made him feel just a little bit better.

He’d been too distracted to notice when it had started, but he registered then that Jeff was watching him now, and he looked pleased for some reason.

“What?” asked Joey defensively.

“You didn’t like to think I’d given up on you,” answered Jeff, “It took me a minute to get that, because I was feeling down about this whole thing and that knife is really filthy and your cuts sting a lot. But you didn’t like that, which means there’s something left not to give up on after all.”

Joey made a scoffing sound in his throat and turned his head away so he didn’t have to look at Jeff.

“Don’t be mad about that,” said Jeff, sounding a little bit genuinely apologetic, “It’s a good thing. I wasn’t trying to rub it in—it actually made me happy.”

“Just. Just stop talking,” said Joey, still not looking at him, “It’s bad enough my arm’s broken. Now I’m stuck here with you and you’re forty now and super weird. Leave me alone.”

“Well, I don’t think I’m _that_ weird,” said Jeff, not really seeming to mind, “But we don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. Might get kind of boring up here though. No idea how long it’ll take Kate, and it might help you to have something other than the arm to think about.”

“What would we talk about?” asked Joey, stealing one glance and then looking away again, “All you’ve done today is gripe at me like a dad over the stuff I do.”

“I don’t know,” answered Jeff, “You could tell me what’s been going on with you since you disappeared from Ormond. Or I could tell you about things that have happened. Went on tour working crew for some cool bands, got this,” said Jeff, pointing to the scar over his left eye, which _was_ a pretty wicked looking scar, “Still do art. Got a dog.”

“I’m not giving away group secrets,” said Joey incredulously, “What do you think I am, some kind of idiot? And I don’t care about anything you do, or your dog.”

“Okay,” answered Jeff noncombatively, “We can just sit here in awkward silence then.”

They did for a minute, Jeff on top of him with the knife, Joey staring broodily at the wood grain on the wall, half praying for Kate to show up and end this, and half hoping she never came back because she was really fucking crazy and scary.

 _I can’t take this,_ thought Joey, his arm and his guilt and the fact he was being held down by Jeff weighing equally on him for uncomfortable and unhappy precedence in his mind. The arm hurt so fucking much. It never stopped hurting, and he thought he couldn’t stand it, but he did, and that was worse. I would have been a relief to pass out just to make it stop. The feeling was miserable, and helpless, which Joey hated. He kept thinking about the way people’s guts looked when you cut them open, and the way Jeff had begged him to stop, and hoping Jeff didn’t remember that, but thinking there was no way he couldn’t. He was probably thinking about it right now, on top of him with the knife. Joey would have been. _I didn’t know it was you,_ thought Joey, trying hard to find some way to stomp out the guilt, _You’re so much older._

There were other things too, things that weren’t Jeff. He was hearing the blonde girl with the blue shirt screaming and jerking uncontrollably when he killed her, and hearing the way that had just been described to him by Jeff playing in his head. _‘The pain kills you’._ Seeing the smaller girl with glasses and dreads hit the ground after a stab between her shoulder blades and try to crawl away from him, whimpering. The way that guy from earlier had closed his eyes when Joey’d gone to cut him. –He hadn’t even paid attention to that before, not really, because he’d been looking for Jane, and he hadn’t really hurt him with the knife—the guy was way too fucked up already to want to hurt—but the guy hadn’t known that. _He was really sure I was going to hurt him for fun,_ thought Joey, trying to assign meaning to that.

It was probably something Joey could have done without much difficulty if he’d really wanted to try, but he was angry, and hurt, and he didn’t like thinking anymore. It was hard, and it only made the arm worse, and him feel lost, so he gave up. “You have a dog?” asked Joey, throat dry and a little rough from shouting earlier.

Jeff looked at him in surprise and then smiled. “Yeah—a pitbull. She’s great. You want to see?”

“You have a picture of it?” asked Joey, taken aback.

“Yeah, in my wallet,” said Jeff, digging in a pocket with his free hand.

“Why would you have that in your wallet?” asked Joey judgily.

“So I can do this to people if they show an interest,” answered Jeff, opening the brown leather wallet and pulling out a photograph of a grinning pitbull with a torn up ear. “Name’s Alice. After the band.”

“Alice in Chains?” asked Joey, thinking the dog did actually look pretty hardcore. He liked dogs, especially the big ones. His family’d had a lab until it got hit by a car when he was fourteen. Malt. He’d been a smart dog—fun to run around with. Not scared of anything. Which was probably why the car got him.

Jeff nodded.

“She looks tough,” said Joey.

“She is,” answered Jeff, pocketing the picture again, “But she’s even smarter.”

 _You really have gotten old to be carrying a picture of your dog in your wallet like she was your kid or something though,_ thought Joey, deciding not to say the jab out loud this time.

“What about you?” asked Jeff, “I don’t know how this works. Haven’t been here that long. Do you still make stuff between…killing people in these whatever they are? Arena matches? You all get time off between to do that kind of thing, or did you have to give it up?”

 _Oh,_ thought Joey, _I guess I haven’t…not in a while._ He did used to make stuff a lot—he’d made the original masks for the group. Although he thought his skull mask was by far the coolest, Susie’s had been the most fun to put together. “No, I don’t really do that anymore,” answered Joey, not seeing any harm to the group in telling him that. “We have breaks, but, not where I could do that.”

He kind of missed it. He hadn’t until Jeff asked, but now that he was thinking about it, he did. _It’s complicated,_ thought Joey unhappily, missing the old days. Running around Ormond, starting shit at school, scaring people and putting them in their place in the parking lot, breaking into places and snatching trophies, defacing signs—that time they’d managed to snag an officer’s hat left unattended in a police car with a window cracked while he stepped out to give someone a ticket.

 _This is so fuckn weird,_ thought Joey, _I haven’t talked to anyone who isn’t one of the Legion in forever. But you were back home, so this is kind of like before. Except that my arm’s broken and you’ve got my knife and everything hurts…_

“Can you move a little?” asked Joey, interrupting whatever Jeff had been about to ask him. “It’s kind of hard to breathe with you on my chest.”

“Are you gonna kick me if I do?” asked Jeff.

“No,” said Joey gloomily.

Jeff thought for a second. “Okay.” He shifted his weight lower, and it was easier to breathe again, but as Jeff moved his foot bumped against the hand on the broken arm and Joey inadvertently screamed as pain shot up his arm.

“Shit!” said Jeff, sounding honestly worried and looking over at the arm, “Did I do that? Are you okay?”

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck,_ thought Joey, unable to even really register the question over the throbbing up and down his arm. He tried to slow down his breathing and force his brain to feel the pain less.

“Did I hurt you?” asked Jeff again.

“Yeah,” answered Joey this time through clenched teeth, still trying to deal with the pain and doing his best to sound tough, “It’s fine though. It’s just a break.”

“You sure?” asked Jeff, looking guilty and a little worried.

“Yeah,” answered Joey, even though he wasn’t. He was worn out, and he never got tired here—not really. Why did breaking an arm make his exhausted? Was that normal?

“Sorry,” said Jeff, “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” said Joey, because he did. It hurt so fucking much. The arm hurt so fucking much, all the time. It just wouldn’t stop. It was so hard to think about anything but being in pain and wanting it to stop. _‘The pain kills you’._  “I’m…” said Joey slowly, not sure if he wanted to finish the sentence, watching the concern on Jeff’s face and the blood dripping from where he’d cut him in the shoulder earlier when he’d been hunting him, thinking about the wounds on the man’s back he couldn’t see, and the way he was still holding one of his arms so stiff at his side. _Shit. Fuck—fuck—I don’t…How would I even…? I…I can’t. It wouldn’t matter. I don’t know if it’s true, so I shouldn’t’ say it—besides, nothing can change. Not even with Jeff. Even if we knew him. It’s not how this works._

Above him, Jeff watched, a little confused and still looking concerned.

“I’m sorry,” said Joey finally, looking away when he did and regretting having said it, “…That I. … That I killed you…before.”

That—that was true, at least. He didn’t like killing them himself, and he never had. So that was okay to say, right?

Jeff smiled at him. “Thanks,” he said, looking really sad and happy at the same time, which was confusing, “I forgive you.”

 _AH,_ thought Joey, _No! That was the worst possible response except stabbing me—fuck, now what am I going to do? Shit, shit—I shouldn’t have said that! It’s going to be so weird chasing him now. I’m going to feel like shit every time I stab him! Why would he say he forgives me? Fuck, I hate this!_

He didn’t look back at Jeff—he couldn’t anymore. It was way too uncomfortable and confusing. He just stared at the wood grain on the wall of the rotting house and tried not to think about anything at all.

“How did you get a good curve with the handsaw?” asked Jeff.

“What?” said Joey, looking up at him in surprise.

He was looking back with genuine curiosity, and a lot more friendliness in his expression than before. Almost casual, like they were back in school together, just sharing notes over something. “You could always do it without barely using the sander at all,” said Jeff, “And the rest of us could never figure it out. How did you do it?”

“What, in shop?” asked Joey.

“Yeah,” said Jeff.

“Really?” said Joey, surprised, “That’s what you want to know?”

“Yeah,” said Jeff again, looking honestly interested.

“You just go slow,” answered Joey, remembering. It wasn’t that hard.

“No way,” said Jeff, shaking his head, “I went slow—we all went slow. There has to be more to it.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, man,” said Joey, “I just went slow.”

“But you were always fast on the sander,” said Jeff.

“Well, yeah, it doesn’t take long,” said Joey.

“It takes _forever_ to get the small bits,” argued Jeff, “The fuckin’ drum sanders don’t fit and you have to be careful as hell.”

“Well, why were you using the drum sander?” asked Joey, totally confused by that. _Of course it doesn’t fit. It’s way too big. That’s like trying to etch with a chisel._

“Because that’s the smallest thing we had on the sander,” said Jeff, looking at him like he wasn’t making any sense.

“Well, yeah,” said Joey, equally confused, “But that doesn’t mean you had to use it. Just like, put in a drill bit and tape some sandpaper to it to get crevices in wood. –Did all of you try to do that with drum sanders? How did you not break your shit?”

“I did,” said Jeff, “A lot. I sanded some of it by hand eventually. You used a drill bit?”

Joey nodded.

“Why didn’t I think of that,” said Jeff, staring past him. He looked down at Joey. “–You came up with that?”

“Well, I needed to sand shit the drums weren’t working on,” answered Joey, still sort of confused. It had just made sense.

Jeff grinned. “That’s not bad.”

 _I guess,_ thought Joey. It was just common sense.

“What about ceramics? Your shit never cracked,” said Jeff.

“That’s not even shop anymore,” protested Joey.

“I want to know!” answered Jeff, a look on his face like he was close to laughing at himself, aware what he was asking about was kind of stupid, but still intent on getting an answer.

“Why?” said Joey.

“Because it was super frustrating at the time,” answered Jeff, “I could finally know. Oh—and with metalworking, your joints never snapped—”

“Dude, were there any classes you _didn’t_ have trouble with?” asked Joey.

Jeff tilted his head, thinking. “Gym class. And Chem.”

“Oh, that’s right,” said Joey, remembering. He’d been crazy good at any impact sports, and Joey used to cheat off him when he wasn’t looking sometimes in chem lab.

“So, are you gonna tell me?” asked Jeff.

“I guess,” said Joey. “I’m not gonna know why your shit broke in the kiln, though. Mine just didn’t because I didn’t have any air pockets.”

“Neither did mine!” protested Jeff.

“Okay, chill,” said Joey, feeling for the first time in a long time completely at home. Enjoying a conversation with someone, and too caught up in things he was remembering how to do to be aware, just for a minute, that it wasn’t real. That he’d killed this man, and would kill him again, and things would return to how they were before—no more lingering flashes of home, or echoes of good memories of highschool. He should have been aware, but he wasn't. He was remembering. And even with a broken arm, for just a minute, Joey wasn’t thinking about anything here. He was thinking about the smell of the woodshop, and the feel of power tools in his hands, the sight of something you’d made, needing just a little more polish, just a little tweaking, but not bad. “So what was wrong with your weld joints?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been stated by the Devs that it is possible, but unlikely for killers to lose or be killed, because the Entity granted them very unfair, overwhelming advantages. Still, everyone is liable to be influenced by what they believe is going to happen, win or lose. Especially somewhere where belief has such a real influence on events. Physically speaking, the Legion and the Hag would probably be the easiest killers to best in a fight if it came to it. Neither has an overwhelming weapon like a chainsaw, an impossible supernatural edge like the Spirit or Krueger, nor the height advantage or overwhelming strength of someone like MacMillian, Ojomo, or Myers. While the Hag can magic, it's not default offensive like the Spirit's Yurei abilities, and thought the Legion can go into frenzy and make themselves much more fast and strong, it's possible, if hard, to beat a human being off their ass on steroids.  
> The Legion themselves are from 1996, according to in-game offerings. It seems pretty likely that they wouldn't recognize Jeff now, especially in the context of a trail--even though he was sort of a casual friend, and made them their logo. Similarly, Jeff probably wouldn't recognize anyone past the masks, even with the group name--at least at first, and definitely until he was made aware of the time distortion going on in the Entity's realm by someone like Laurie. It's surreal and horrific to imagine ending up somewhere like that to find out the person killing you was Haley who you used to share test notes with or something. Casual friends is a complicated relationship to have with someone under strained circumstances, because you have a lot of the same hurt and hesitation going against them if they do something to harm you that you would with a closer friend, but none of the assurances and safety. The weird twenty-year age gap can't possibly make things much easier, either.
> 
> This is a bit later than usual because I've been gone on a film shoot, and the next one may be a little oddly timed as well, because now I'm prepping for a con the weekend of the 7th. Since I knew that was going to be the case, I wanted to make sure to get at least one substantial chapter done in the middle of it, and I did, but I overdid it. Originally this was supposed to all be one chapter, but the finished and edited draft clocked in at 105 pages, so I'm breaking it into two for the sanity of everyone involved. I really appreciate you guys not minding the occasional 50 page chapter, but this one was just way too much. (And I hope to have more of a variety of length going forward, because that much per week just isn't sustainable). It was very fun to do, though, and I hope you like it. I will be going ahead and posting them both today, so people don't have to wait for the conclusion. I know I said earlier I was probably not going to include Jane Romero and Adiris, mostly because I didn't want to write 20 pages of vomiting, but it occurred to me I could include Jane and still opt out of that if I chose, so I caved. I've always liked her, and planning out chapters I found a story for her in this that worked well, so here she is after all. She's a fantastically interesting character in cannon, so I hope you all like her here. Thank you again to everyone reading! The next one will be up today too.


	42. Iron Maiden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the trial comes to an end, things come to a head. Jane does her best to accept her new reality, Quentin tries to make right, Joey faces some hard choices, and Frank makes a sacrifice.

It was a cold night in New Jersey. Route 36 was a little out of the way, but it was late, and crowded along the parkways always, but especially around the holiday season. Besides, out of the way was good. Even out here the road was jammed with cars, but at least they were moving. She might get to her dad’s while he was still up. He was always up late.

There wasn’t any snow yet, but it was cold enough for it, and there was something oddly reassuring about the steady dark waves coming in from the Atlantic. The ocean was big and unknowable, but it had always been there, and it didn’t really change. Big bodies of water were like that. Even in this weather, there were a few people out on the coast—jogging with dogs, or taking pictures. Talking. Families.

 _It’s fine,_ Jane told herself, taking a deep breath, _She just did it for the publicity. That’s all she’s ever cared about anyway, but it won’t be like it used to be. You’re a big name too, now. She can call you a liar and tell everyone you have no claim on her life, but that doesn’t make it true this time. People believe you. They listen to you now.  You’re a brand name, and big name. You might not be ‘Loretta Lawrence,’ but you’re Jane Romero. She can’t throw you away and act like it’s nothing this time; you won’t let her. This time you’re going to win._

Those words were reassuring for a second, but part of her didn’t like them. Her brain felt dark, and foggy, and she didn’t like it. It was like heaviness. But not depression. Fear? Anger?

It was so dark outside, and even with her car’s new headlights and cars all around her helping to light up the road, it was hard to see. They were driving carefully, because at this temperature there were bound to be patches of black ice, and Jane had already hit two herself.

 _That’s what I feel like,_ thought Jane, feeling angry and empty at the same time. The pounding in her head had gotten better when she’d taken medicine a little while back, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough. _Be Jane Romero. Smile, be funny, be smart, be informed—be informed about everything. Be right, know your stuff, be consoling, be frank, help people. Know how to help people. Be witty, keep the ball rolling, be on top of it, be looked up to, be somebody, be good at this, help people, show them what you’ve learned, make things better for people like you, make things better for everyone._

But did she know how? She had worked so hard to get where she was, but everything felt like it was going to break away any second.

 _I feel like black ice,_ thought Jane, watching the road carefully, trying hard not to let the exhaustion in her bones move to her brain. Trying to focus. _I used to think I was paving a road for myself, and that then I could help other people like me. Because I would have figured things out and made a safe path, and I could share that. But did I? Did I ever really do anything at all?_

Maybe it was the response to her book. _I’m not special, or different. I don’t know anything no one else has ever learned. I can’t help anybody, I don’t even know what I’m doing. I can’t even handle being me._ She’d poured everything she thought she really knew into it, but the reviews had been right. No number of handwritten cards from fans about what it had meant to them could seem to make her feel otherwise. Worse, it made her feel like she’d been lying to them—like they thought she’d helped them because they wanted to believe it—because she’d made them think so, tricked them. Like she was pretending to be something she wasn’t.

Maybe it was her mother disavowing her again—denying they were even related on a live broadcast, national tv. _You can’t throw me away!_ thought Jane angrily, stomping on the gas and hating the man in the car in front of her for driving so slowly even though the fault couldn’t possibly lie with him, or even the fourteen cars in front of him, _Not after everything I’ve worked for! Not this time! I won’t let you!_

But god, maybe it was just her. _Am I starting to sound like her?_ wondered Jane, _Do I care about myself so much I care more if I earned my fame and if I’m real than if my book helped people?_ She had always wanted to do this—to have a voice and be able to use it help people who’d been through things. Not just things like she had—not just growing up with a single parent—she had wanted to give people a voice for anything they felt like they didn’t get to hear and needed to. _But if that’s true why do I hate her so much,_ thought Jane hopelessly, blinking to focus on the road in front of her, _All I want to do is become so famous and so loved I can grab it and fling it in her face so she has to accept me, or suffer and see that she was wrong. I want to prove her so wrong the whole world knows it. I’m not nothing._

Her whole life she’d hated her mother for being gone, but also wanted to be like her—constantly inspired by interviews and films and stories. _I wanted to be you but better!_ thought Jane angrily, slamming her palm against the top of the steering wheel, and then much more sadly, looking at the hand that stung now, _Or did I just want to be you?_

Maybe her mistake had been caring at all who her mother was, or why she’d left her. The woman had never even come to a birthday, or sent cards. Like she was nothing. _You brought me into the world, but you couldn’t even say ‘Hi’,_ thought Jane morosely, watching the road, _And now you can’t even let me be me. You want to take that away, too._

The ocean moved beside her along the coast, steady, unchanging, unknowable, but reliable. A reassurance. Jane flipped on the radio, trying to get her emotions under control. _This isn’t you,_ Jane told herself, adjusting the volume and recognizing one of Beethoven’s piano sonatas.

Her dad would help. He’d always been good, and grounding.

 _But are people going to believe her?_ thought Jane, feeling afraid and lonely and small, which were the things she hated most in the world, _Are they going to think everything I ever said was a lie?_

There was no way she had that kind of pull, right? Even as a big-name actress like Loretta Lawrence. Jane wasn’t nobody anymore.

“Moonlight sonata,” whispered Jane to herself, finally remembering which of his works this was on the radio. Fitting, for a drive like this.

It made her feel better to hear the piano slowly move along with her, key by key and lonely sounding itself. Something about pianos. Maybe the most emotional sounding instrument there was, except a human voice.

 _Black ice,_ thought Jane again, avoiding some as she watched the man in the Chevy in front of her skid a little before righting. _Did I just make people think I could be better? And help them be better, and safe? But really I’m a trap, like a bad road in winter. People shouldn’t follow me._

She let out a sigh and listened to the piano on the radio again. “How did a man write something so beautiful without the ability to hear it?” she said softly, asking no one.

Maybe that was a good thing, though. She’d felt less and less like the Jane she’d always thought for sure she was, and more and more like something bad recently. The blind struggling to lead the blind.

“But if you could do it, maybe there are things…” whispered Jane, listening to Beethoven’s first movement end. The piano became much more cheery, plinking away, no longer the incredibly familiar moody cycle that began the sonata. _That I can do too,_ finished Jane internally, _Even if I can’t see all the way._

She was so tired. It was getting harder and harder to keep her eyes open. And she felt strange. Not exactly like sleeping, but similar.

 _No, no, no,_ Jane told herself wearily, _No falling asleep at the wheel. Think of all the other motorists._ Not that they were probably going fast enough for her to do much damage.

They hit a curve in the road, and Jane was above the ocean, looking down at it.

 _That’s funny,_ thought Jane, feeling strange and light, and not connected to the world at all, _Should I be this close to the water?_

She hadn’t even realized her eyes had been closed. And then she was falling. She wasn’t awake for the ice, or the impact as she ricocheted off the Chevy and left the road, but she opened her eyes inside the car as it fell, the Atlantic coming up to meet her, Beethoven’s sonata still playing, but in its third movement somehow.

 _When did?_ thought Jane foggily, and then the car got dark, and thick, and it was cold, and she lost consciousness again to the sound of a piano.

Her windshield impacted the frigid water and the airbags popped. A violent, sudden stop. The car started to sink, water leaking in from cracks never meant to be airtight, filling up much slower than it took the car to sink to the bottom, forty heavy feet of ice-cold water between it and the dim lights above.

Somewhere in the night, the man in the Chevy stopped his car, and so did the woman and her daughter in the jeep behind, who had been watching Jane swerve. They called out, headlights bouncing off the Atlantic as bubbles came up from where the car had vanished. They called out for help, dialing phones, not knowing who the woman had been, but knowing she couldn’t be alive much longer down there in water chilled by air hovering just below freezing the past two weeks. While other cars passed like nothing had changed in the world, the three of them stood on the side of the road, watching, as the odds she was alive dropped, but the woman with the jeep had a four year old daughter and couldn’t jump and leave her, and the man was afraid to.

Beneath the waves, the car filled up, Beethoven still playing until the water reached the radio, but Jane was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

 _You really gotta watch your step here, Jane,_ Jane told herself as she followed the boy stealthily up a swampy hill, towards an old wooden shack. She kept checking behind them for signs of the masked man from earlier, but there was nothing, which was good but also in some ways worse than seeing him would have been. Because it meant she just didn’t know.

It was so hard to know what to do. _I was driving, last thing I remember,_ tried Jane for the twentieth time, _That’s for sure. And then I was here. And. And…_ And that was it, wasn’t it? But something had been wrong in the car, and it hadn’t just been that she’d been tired. _Okay, so I got drugged, and kidnapped,_ thought Jane, _And I ended up…wherever here is._

Ahead of her, she watched Quentin walk, mind replaying what he’d said. _He’s probably just confused,_ Jane told herself, feeling bad for him as she watched him limping a little as he went up the slope, like it hurt to put much weight on his left leg. Who could blame him? She didn’t know what had happened to him, but he looked like he’d been through something pretty traumatic. _You poor thing,_ thought Jane, watching him as they walked, _What did they do to you?_ Whatever had happened, it had been cruel. And it hadn’t been a fight. A lot of what she could see, especially on his face, wasn’t the kind of thing that happened to you in a fight. She wished he’d let her help him.

 _Probably you’re just lost, and you don’t really understand what’s happening. You’re confused,_ rationalized Jane, mind going over the dead serious look on his face when he’d said ‘time-loop’. His injuries might be the explanation. It wasn’t unusual for some amount of memory problems to go along with trauma. Neither was remembering things not exactly as they’d happened. People did what they had to to make things make sense, and make them bearable. Plus, he’d sounded really sure that the man in the mask would kill them if he found them. Maybe believing things happened again and again and his friends who were dead would come back was what was getting him through. _Besides, some of what he said sounds like it’s probably sort of right, so I really don’t think he’s just lying,_ thought Jane, remembering back to what she’d overheard. Stumbling around after waking up in the dirt on top of some groaning planks on an old wooden dock, Jane had heard what she’d thought was a scream, and moved away from the sound, trying to figure out where she was, and why the climate was completely different, and scared after the scream, and then she’d heard voices and headed carefully towards them, but it hadn’t been what she’d expected at all, no matter what she’d been expecting to find in some backwater swamp, miles from New York or New Jersey and her car.

“…Are you…gonna not?”

That had been the first thing she’d heard. It hadn’t sounded good or bad, but it had been people, so she’d gotten closer, and then she’d seen them. The boy with her—Quentin Smith, he’d said, and someone taller, holding him by the throat and brandishing a knife.

 “Can I go?” he’d asked, and the one with the mask on had said ‘no’. But there had been something like Quentin had just told her too—what had he said? ‘You’re going up on a hook just like everyone else’?

Jane had been scared, because that was the normal feeling that went with seeing someone threatening to stab someone else with a knife, but she’d also known she had to do something. The guy with the knife had seen her, then, and she’d panicked for a second and hidden, kicking herself for being a coward and choosing her own safety over someone who was in life-threatening trouble by not rushing in to help the young man in danger, while at the same time trying to rationalize the choice to herself to quell the guilt; she hadn’t been armed, she had no plan, the masked man had seen her and she had no element of surprise on her side, she didn’t know where she was, or if there were more of the masked people with knives.

But then, the man in the mask had come around the corner dragging the young man who was pretty badly injured already, threatening to cut him up more for fun, and Jane had had a second opportunity to make the same choice, and she’d gone for a different outcome. She had still been afraid, but getting a good look at the young man the masked guy was dragging around, she’d known she couldn’t have been as scared, or in as much trouble as he was. It was the right thing to do, and in life you didn’t often get a second chance at that after messing up. Jane wasn’t about to hope for a third.

So, she’d rammed the guy in the face with a door, grabbed the hurt kid, and booked. When she’d done it, she’d expected things to get worse before they got better, but this?

 _Whatever is going on, it is bad,_ thought Jane, watching Quentin carefully as he walked unsteadily up the hill, and then a thought she hadn’t even considered before hit her. _Unless. Unless this is some stupid Survivor gameshow prank thing—in which case I’m suing. I’m very much suing. This is not funny at all, or fun. I’m scared, and I’m scared for this kid, and if that was an actor I slammed in the face with a locker door, he deserved it for doing this, but I could have seriously hurt him, and that’s not okay either._

It might be a stunt of some kind. Couldn’t it? That was hopeful, and she wanted desperately to believe it now that she’d thought of it. Quentin hadn’t wanted her to get close enough to get a good look at his injuries—although she’d been able to see them pretty well just carrying him. That might be something, right? _If he’s faking it though,_ thought Jane, unsettled, _He’s doing an incredibly impressive job, and the special effects makeup team really outdid themselves._

Even though she would be really mad and feel stupid if that was the case, Jane really, really, really hoped it was just some stupid tv stunt now that the possibility had hit her. If it was, things would be okay. She would be angry, and hurt, but things would be alright. No one was in real danger. But if it wasn’t—if whatever was happening was happening for real? Then she was in trouble. She was in so much trouble, and so was this confused, half-dead young man, and a girl named Kate out here somewhere who might still be alive. Jane was a pretty self-reliant person, but she was daunted by the responsibility of trying to protect not just herself, but someone else she’d just met and a girl she’d never seen. Not that she wasn’t going to do it—she sure as hell was going to try—but that was a lot, and…

 _Better not to think about,_ Jane told herself, regaining her composure, _You don’t know what’s happening for sure yet. Stay calm, stay collected. You can do this._

 _Can I, though?_ thought Jane back at herself, then angrily, _Yes you can! You don’t have a choice. Stop panicking, you stupid bitch. That won’t help._

Maybe this was a stunt. That could be the truth—there were…ways that could sort of make sense, right? Still. As much as she wanted more and more to try and convince herself this was some kind of publicity stunt ever since it had become a vague hope to cling to twenty seconds ago, it was steadily becoming less and less something she could believe. It wasn’t the grass, or the lack of lights and places to put cameras, or even the injures on the kid with her, or the improbability of such a thing in the first place. The doubt was coming from somewhere else—somewhere Jane couldn’t place, and it was scaring her. Scratching away at the inside of her head, trying to be found. And Jane wanted at the same time to find it and never to find it, but she was pretty sure the choice wasn’t up to her.

Ahead of them was a massive metal door amidst the high brick walls. Beside it was a huge lever. Quentin walked up to it and flipped it, holding it down for a few seconds, but nothing happened.

“See?” said the kid, looking kind of nervous and miserable, “It won’t power until we light four more generators.”

“Didn’t you say five?” asked Jane, who as a live tv host had an excellent memory for recent recall.

“Yeah, but someone got one in the swamp when you were running with me,” said Quentin, “Don’t you remember?”

Come to think of it, she did. She hadn’t known what it was, and at the time she’d assumed it was a security light catching her movement—which was why she’d run from it—but a light _had_ come on in the swamp.

“Why would it be set up like that?” asked Jane, remembering the weird generator just sitting alone on the hill. She hadn’t even seen any wires connecting it to anything. How was it supposed to power anything without wires? And these people just left things that could open the doors lying about, unguarded? _None of this makes sense,_ thought Jane, feeling weird. It should have made her suspicious, or more sure that this was some kind of publicity stunt show, but the feeling wasn’t like that. It was like her mind was hearing everything he said and nodding to itself, trying to convince her along with him that it was entirely sensible. But why? Why would she feel like that? _I don’t like this._

Quentin gave her a kind of hopeless shrug, looking tired and beaten. “I’m not sure why it’s like this. I know all of it has to seem crazy, but I’m telling you the truth. I promise. I know how serious this is, and I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Okay,” said Jane gently, feeling bad for him even though there was a chance he was part of some massive scam on her, because he looked so terrible and so sincere. _Either he’s on drugs or traumatized but sort of knows what he’s talking about, and fixing a generator might help us get the door, or this is some stupid publicity show thing and that’s probably where the script is supposed to go anyway, and playing along is the fastest way to end this, right?_

The thought made sense to her for a second, and then it didn’t, and Jane felt very weird. And wrong. _I want to fix that generator,_ thought Jane, feeling unnerved and with a sense of dread washing over her, _I really want to fix that generator. So much that I just came up with reasons to do it instead of something that actually makes sense, like escaping. Or exploring. Or asking this kid for more information. Why would I do that? Why do I want this so badly? What’s wrong with me? Even if I’ve been drugged, how can someone have made me want something?_

“Are you okay?” asked Quentin, looking up at her with a worried expression on his face.

 _What’s going on,_ thought Jane, suddenly feeling petrified and a primal urge to panic all throughout her, _What’s happening to me?_

“Miss Romero?” he asked again, stepping a little closer.

 _Get a grip, Jane!_ “How did you end up so hurt?” asked Jane, voice a little distant, trying to ground herself on something that could and should be immediately dealt with, but not feeling entirely present. Something dark still scratching at the back of her mind.

“It’s sort of hard to explain,” said Quentin, “One of the bad things here really hates me.”

“One—one of the bad things?” asked Jane, confused and feeling less aware than before, like she was starting to dissociate. _What’s happening? I know I was in my car, and I know I woke up here. There wasn’t…_

No, but there had been something else. There was one memory still there, between the car and here. She’d been looking at the Atlantic coming up fast to greet her.

 _Oh my god,_ thought Jane, feeling her veins freeze and her heart skip a beat in her chest, _Oh god. I drowned._ The fall from the road would have been steep, and the water freezing cold. She didn’t remember drowning, or freezing, or dying, but…But the car. But she had been falling, hadn’t she?

 _Did I die?_ thought Jane, staring through Quentin at nothing, _Is…is this…did—did I go to hell? Am I in hell with this poor kid, and this is what torture is? Over and over dying and running, like he said, and he just doesn’t know it? Holy shit—oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god. I—I know I wasn’t a perfect person, I know I did things wrong, but I tried. I did, I tried so hard—I wouldn’t go to hell, would I? Fuck. Fuck, no. Oh god no, no, no. No it can’t be that. No, please._

She swallowed, trying to stay calm, trying to quell the fear inside her. _No—no none of that makes sense, Jane. You’re alive—you feel alive, right? I’m alive. I have to be. That doesn’t make sense—why would this be what being dead is like? Right? Right. Okay, okay calm down girl, just think. It—it makes as much sense for you to be somewhere real, kidnapped, or tricked—maybe you dreamed the wreck. Or—or someone got you out of the water. All of that is possible. You’re not dead. You aren’t. You’re alive. You’re alive. You’re alive._

The young man had said something to her, but she’d missed it, and she blinked and tried to re-focus on his face again, still feeling strange, and heavy, and off.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Quentin again, looking more concerned now than before.

“Let’s climb the fence,” said Jane, trying to focus on his face and make herself ground. “It’s not that high. I think we could do it. That might be a little rough on you, but I’ll go first, and I can help you up.”

He got a strange look on his face when she said that, first like he felt bad about something, and then before that emotion had completely registered his face changed and he looked almost excited about something, or relieved.

“We can’t get out that way,” said Quentin, “But I can show you.”

“Show me?” asked Jane uncertainly, dread still hanging around at the back of her mind, “Show me what?”

“The outside. Come on,” said Quentin, motioning her to go with him, over to the wall near the gate. It was a decently high wall, made of ragged brick, with metal poles sticking out of the top at jagged angles, but certainly not undoable. Not sheer steel. There should be handholds among the brick. Jane followed him, feeling like she was in a dream.

“I, uh,” said Quentin as he reached the base of the wall and waited for her, “I’m really sorry.”

“Sorry?” asked Jane, stopping close to him, but not super close, because the apology unnerved her. “About what?”

“Look,” said Quentin, “There’s just no good way to say this, and I know I sound absolutely crazy, but I’m going to try and explain the truth to you the best that I can.”

There was something about his expression that seemed so totally sincere. Of course, that didn’t mean what he was saying was true. He could believe it and be wrong, or be an actor who was just really good at what he did, but…

“I’m really sorry you got stuck here,” said Quentin sincerely, “I remember watching some of your show, on…” he stopped, like he’d been going to say something and changed his mind. He swallowed and kept going, “You seemed…you seem really nice. And you don’t even know me, but you just fought one of the killers to save me. So you have to be a really good person. You deserved better than getting stuck here.”

“You’re kind of scaring me, Quentin,” said Jane, going for a lighter tone in her voice than what she was feeling, not wanting to betray how true that was, her mind filling the silence before she spoke with unsaid rebuttals, like it always did to compliments. _I’m not that good. I hid when I saw you. I’ve never really done anything that good, or nice. I’m sure I seem that way. But it’s because I act nice. I try, but it’s for selfish reasons. It’s because I want to be good, not because I am. I act good. I act…_

“Try to climb the fence,” said Quentin, motioning to it.

“Is it going to shock me?” asked Jane.

“No,” said Quentin, shaking his head, “No—I would warn you if it was going to hurt you or something. It just won’t let you leave. I’ve tried that a lot of times. But…the way it stops you should be kind of convincing. That I’m not making all this up. I could try to explain it first, if you want, but it’ll probably just make more sense if you see for yourself.”

“Okay,” said Jane slowly. Nervous now, she put her hand on a brick and looked over her shoulder at him. He looked gravely serious, but he nodded at her to keep going. _This is surreal. Maybe…maybe I am dreaming?_ thought Jane, _Lord, please let me be dreaming. That would be really good right now._

She got one handhold, then another, and lifted herself up a few feet. It was a little bit of a struggle to find a good foothold, and Jane had never been great at rock climbing—even the easy kind, where you wore a harness and there were fake rocks screwed into a wall at a gym—but Quentin pointed out an easy one for her about a half a foot to the right of her knee, and Jane got it and kept going. It was slow, and she was pretty sure she was going to fall several times, but after a few seconds of breathing hard and awkwardly hanging in place looking for something new to hold onto, Jane made it to the top and stopped, one good heave from being able to see over the fence, but suddenly afraid to do it.

“Quentin,” she asked slowly, staring at the brick between her fingers, and afraid to hear the answer but needing to, “Are we dead?”

There was a delay, and then she heard him say, “You mean, is this…like, purgatory? No. No, it’s not. We’re still alive.” He sounded relieved when he said it. Finally something positive to break to her.

“You’re sure?” asked Jane, still thinking about the way the water had looked and the car had been tilted and her body had felt weightless in the fall.

“Yeah,” he answered. She looked back at him, and the expression on his face was assured. “I am.”

 _Okay,_ thought Jane, still afraid, but finally turning from him to look over the wall. She lifted herself up and immediately felt her stomach drop.

The sight before her wasn’t…scary. It just.

It wasn’t.

There was nothing.

There was nothing at all. There was a patch of ground, maybe a foot past the wall, and then it just dropped off. But it wasn’t like a floating island either—there was nothing below. No water—not even what looked like a chasm or something you could fall into. It was like being in a void. And she could see it—see that everything went on like this, around the fence as far as she could see in either direction. The gate on her left stretched out past the rest of the area, and she could see an area past it for a few feet, but beyond that? Nothing again.

“That’s impossible,” whispered Jane almost too quietly even to hear herself. It was. _No. No, I have to be dreaming._

“Are you okay?” called up Quentin in low tones, sounding genuinely concerned.

 _No,_ thought Jane, staring at the void beyond the wall, _I’m not._

Standing on the top of the wall with her elbows wrapped around the metal poles sticking up from the top of the bricks to help her support her weight, Jane looked down at her hand, and then smacked herself, trying to wake up. She did it a second time, and then pinched herself, but nothing.

“Where we are. It’s not like the real world,” came Quentin’s voice quietly from below, “We’re sort of…in…like pocket dimensions? And which one we’re in changes. I know this all sounds fake, and sci-fi, but it’s true. As much as I know about this place, anyway. We don’t know for sure what the thing that made this place is, but it’s some kind of big powerful monster, and it grabs people like you and me from the real world and takes us here and keeps us in these…arenas, or little areas, or whatever they are.”

 _This is impossible to accept,_ Jane’s mind informed her, _It defies logic. You’re dreaming, or high as shit and tripping balls._

She was looking at it, though, and her body wasn’t sold on what her mind was trying to push. Her animal instincts said, _Fuck logic. I can see that there’s nothing out there. This is real bad old world magic and we’re super fucked._ Jane wasn’t sure what to believe. It _felt_ real.

 _What the hell am I supposed to do,_ thought Jane hopelessly, too many emotions welling up at once, and too confused to understand any of them, _This doesn’t make sense. It can’t be real. And why am I here? How could I end up in place like this, even if it was real? I wasn’t somewhere haunted; I was driving along the highway. There were hundreds of people around me. Even—even if I wrecked, why? Why—why would that send me to some kind of spirit world?_

“Miss Romero?” asked Quentin again below her, “Are you okay? I mean…I…I know that’s stupid to ask. Probably not. But. …Can I do something to help you?”

 _What happens if I jump into the void?_ thought Jane, inability to accept the situation suddenly flooding her, fueling her with the desire to act, _Maybe I’m dreaming. I’m going to jump in the void. I have to get out. Or wake up. I have to end this._

She turned and started to try and force herself through the bars at the top.

“Wait!” called up Quentin much louder, “What are you doing?”

Jane didn’t answer. Fear and confusion and things her mind wasn’t meant to handle were crashing down on her and all she could think about was the sight of the Atlantic coming up to meet her, and the rage and shame and fear and confusion and hate she’d felt on stage when her mother had claimed not to be related to her. Challenging everything she’d ever been or built up for herself—worked so hard to carve out of this fucked up life. She’d done so much work—she’d tried so hard, worked so, so long, and fought, and finally she’d had something, and then—and then that? That one night, one interview with her mother? And everything—everything she’d ever done or been!   _I’m not ending my life like that,_ thought Jane, trying to climb past the metal poles above the brick part of the fence, _No way. I’m jumping in the void and waking up or getting back. I have to._

“Jane, don’t!” called Quentin desperately from below her, “It’ll hurt you to make you stop!”

Finally making it past the metal rods, black spikes shot up in Jane’s path, digging out of the brick and leaking black smoke, barring her way. Jane slammed her fists against them and then her shoulder, trying to break through, but the spikes were cold, and they burned her. _No,_ thought Jane in a panic, even through the pain, _This can’t be real! It can’t!_

She screamed and rammed her shoulder into them again, feeling the cold through her suit jacket as the skin burned against the freezing sensation.

“Miss Romero, stop! Please! You’re hurting yourself!”

Jane was aware that the young man was still trying to talk to her, and there was panic in his voice now. He was struggling to climb the wall after her and having some trouble, his voice coming from closer as he slowly made a little progress up, but Jane ignored it.

 _I have to get out! I want to go home!_ thought Jane, grabbing at the bars as they burned her hands and crying out at the pain, but not willing to give up, fighting with primal desperation to break through them. _I can’t end it like that! My last show, the one where my mother showed up and did that? Everyone will think I killed myself! That I drove into the ocean on purpose, because she was right, and I was never hers, or because I was weak and gave in, or a fraud, and I never got better at all! Everything I ever tried to do, or prove, or teach, or help, or prove wrong, it’ll all be for nothing! It’ll destroy everything I left behind! Everything! Everything I ever did or worked for or fought against or lived through, it’ll all be for nothing!_

She screamed with anger and frustration and fear and pain and fury at the unfairness of it all, fighting harder and harder to get past the bars, and she was seeing the grin on her mother’s perfect face when she walked out on stage and shook her hand, no idea yet the woman she had only ever wanted to love her had come there to meet her finally, after thirty-eight years, with only the intent to hurt her and shame her as publicly and devastatingly as possible. Jane was seeing her mother’s grin, and seeing people who had mothers drop their daughters off at school, and herself as a young woman doing scenes from _The Rose Tattoo_ in school and wanting to be able to reach people and reassure them they had worth no matter what flaws the way reading it had made her feel, and seeing the first handwritten letter she’d ever gotten from someone thanking her for changing their life, and seeing the Atlantic looking cold and black, and the disapproving look on her producer’s face when she’d walked past him backstage on her way to her car hours ago, and the way the Chevy in front of her had skidded on the ice, and the look on her own face in the few frames from the episode she’d seen when she’d walked through the editing room, and black water coming up to meet the windshield, and then she heard a cry and then a loud thud that weren’t coming from inside her own head, and the sound brought her back and she stopped, hands stinging and raw from the cold and jacket burned through in the shoulder.

Jane turned to look, still feeling dazed, and saw the young man had lost his grip on the wall and fallen, and was laying at the base of it, unmoving.

_Oh no._

“Quentin?” she called, still only half aware—half of her still lost to the panic and the struggle and the fight against the force trapping her in here. He didn’t respond. Not even a shift, or a groan.

 _Jane,_ she told herself, trying to break free of the fog in her mind, _Jane, hurry—he might be dead. He was trying to help you. Jane, you have to stop. You have to go._ Slowly, she let go of the bars, barely noticing the chunks of skin that stayed on them as the ice tore at her when she pulled back. Feeling shaky and not like herself at all, but a little more alive as she went, Jane turned and struggled down the wall, about as undignified as humanly possible, scratching her pants suit against the brick as she went, and leaping the last five feet to the ground.

The boy was laying still on the ground, about three feet away.

Kneeling beside him, Jane could tell he was breathing, but he was bleeding from the back of his head, too, and he didn’t look good. _Damn it. Damn it—what was I doing,_ thought Jane, angry and miserable as she propped him up in her lap, _Stupid!_  “Hey. Hey, Quentin?” she said softly, trying to rouse him, “Are you alright?”

Her hands hurt moving him, and she didn’t know what to do. If she’d had any doubt before that the wounds all over him were real, she didn’t have them now. He had bandages around most of them, but the ones on his face were taped shut, and she could see them well enough. Jane tore off her suit jacket and put it behind his head, trying to keep a little pressure on the wound that was bleeding from the fall, wishing she knew anything about medical treatment. Literally the only thing that was coming to her was people in films saying, “Keep pressure on it,” which is what she was doing, but that didn’t feel like a very comprehensive overview. _Look at yourself!_ her mind screamed, _You’re so upset by the thought that people will forget to love you that you did this! You killed him! Everything you’ve ever pretended to do was worthless, and it should be forgotten—all you are is a fake! Just trying to string people along long enough that they believe in you since you can’t! Look at what you did!_

Jane swallowed, trying not to cry because the words in her mind dug in deep and bit hard. She tried to shake him, praying he would wake up. _What did I do? Please wake up—I don’t know how to wake you up if you can’t do it on your own. Please, Quentin—I’m sorry. Please wake up._

“Quentin?” she tried again, shaking him with a little more strength this time, still trying to be careful not to hurt him, but not knowing what else to do.

After a second, the young man groaned and blinked, opening his eyes.

“Are you alright?” asked Jane as she looked down at him, eyes searching desperately for confirmation he was okay.

He blinked at her and squinted. “Jane…Romero?”

“It’s still me,” confirmed Jane, feeling relief flood her system.

“That happened, huh,” asked Quentin, sounding a little disoriented.

“What were you doing, climbing the wall like this?” reproached Jane, desperately relieved he was alive. _How did he even make it that far up it? He looks like absolute shit, and I mean that in a very caring way, but it’s amazing he’s on his feet at all looking like this._

“You were hurting yourself, and I didn’t know how to get you to stop,” answered Quentin, blinking and trying to focus on her face.

“That was really reckless,” said Jane, feeling self-conscious about the burns on her hands and not wanting to address them, “I thought you’d killed yourself for a second.”

“I know, I do a lot of stupid things,” agreed Quentin, sounding tired, “I’m sorry. I knew I couldn’t climb it, but I tried anyway.”

 _I’m no better,_ thought Jane guiltily, _I let him get hurt, I let myself get hurt. I was stupid_.

“I just—” continued Quentin unsteadily, “it was my fault. I didn’t do a very good job explaining this whole—the world, and everything to you. I didn’t prepare you for that. I’m sorry.”

 “You’re not stupid, just reckless,” said Jane, shaking her head. He was looking better the more he talked, which was good. It didn’t look like the fall had really done that much damage after all. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. You did a fine job explaining. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

“Does that mean you believe me now?” asked Quentin hopefully.

“I don’t know,” answered Jane honestly, still feeling pretty terrible about everything that was going on in her life. _Do I?_ She believed that the kid was sincere, and that what was happening wasn’t normal. There was nothing past the wall, and spikes had come out of nowhere, and her hands were cold burned for real, and stung, and bled. But it was hard to really understand what that meant—what any of this meant. It was too much to take in all at once, and more than that, Jane didn’t want to take it in and accept it. She wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening for as long as possible. “Can I have a couple of minutes to adjust before I give you an answer?” she asked after a moment.

“Yeah, that seems fair,” he said, closing his eyes for a second. He opened them again. “I just hit my head? Didn’t break anything?”

Jane looked him over, trying to figure that out. “Just your head, I think,” she answered.

“Cool,” said Quentin, taking a shaky breath, “I’m going to try to get up, then, and we should go fix a generator. It’s kind of a miracle Legion hasn’t found us and attacked again already. Kate must be keeping him busy or something, but that won’t last forever.”

“Alright,” said Jane, helping him up and taking her jacket back bloody as he got off her lap and took her hand. He seemed shaky for a second, then to get his balance, and he looked down at her hand.

“You’re hurt,” he said, staring at the missing chunks of skin.

Jane drew her hand back, ashamed and flustered and trying to cover it. “Not badly,” she said quickly. It wasn’t good, though. The palms were bleeding and cracked, and missing huge chunks of skin. Moving her hands was painful—a raw kind of pain, stiff and tender and lingering.

“I can help you,” said Quentin, holding out a hand for hers, “I’m kind of like a doctor here. I, uh,” he lowered the hand momentarily, patting his pockets, “I usually keep supplies on me, but I gave this jacket to—” He stopped and drew out some kind of flower and some leafy plant and what looked like half a cookie from one pocket, then a needle and thread and a roll of gauze from the other. “I should have known,” he said to himself, smiling at the pockets’ contents. Quickly shoving everything but the gauze back into pockets, Quentin held out his hand again.

“Alright,” said Jane, stepping a little closer and holding out her own hand. It wouldn’t hurt.

He took the hand carefully and looked down at it, grimacing sympathetically at the cold burns and missing skin. “That probably stings a lot, yeah?” he asked, looking from the hand to her.

She nodded.

“Hang on,” he said, fishing the little sprig of flowers back out of his pocket. “This is going to be kind of gross,” he explained, holding the white-ish blossoms up for her to see, “But it’s Yarrow. You chew it to make a paste, and it soothes cuts and stops bleeding, and helps prevent infections.”

 _That is kind of gross,_ thought Jane, watching him stick the plant in his mouth and start chewing it. Her hands hurt, though, and nothing was a lot grosser than her hands looked already. _Yarrow? I know that name from…No, maybe I don’t…_

Opposite her, Quentin spat the paste out into his hand and gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry, I know it’s gross. But it will make your hands hurt less.”

Jane nodded again and held out her palms, watching as he spread the paste onto her hands. It stung a little—anything touching the burns did—and then almost immediately it hurt less. He smoothed the chewed plant carefully, making sure to get the burns on her fingers too, and then took out the gauze and started to wrap it around her hands, secure but not tight, keeping the Yarrow in place. She watched the intense focus on his face as he worked, thoroughly absorbed in the act.

 _Like a doctor, huh?_ _It’s sweet,_ she thought, watching him, _You’re just a kid, and somehow you have the presence of one, but you need to look after yourself too. Even half dead you’re taking care of my hands, but you won’t accept help yourself. Why won’t you let me help you?_

“Thank you,” she said out loud as he carefully tied off the bandages.

“Do you want me to get your shoulder too?” he asked, already taking another clump of the blossoms out of his pocket.

“No, that’ll be fine,” said Jane, “It’s mostly just the jacket that got burned.”

“Okay,” he said, lowering his hand. “The generator, then. Right.”

“What about you?” asked Jane. “Your head.”

“My head?” he asked, reaching up and feeling the back of it where it had been bleeding. “Oh. From the fall. I’m okay,” he said, glancing at the hand as he withdrew it. Jane caught some blood on it before he wiped it on his jeans. “It isn’t bad. Come on—we should go.”

 Quentin started to walk for the generator he’d pointed out before, going slower and more unsteadily than he’d walked to the gate.

 _You don’t look so good,_ thought Jane, watching him. He was having some trouble with his left leg, still limping, but more than that he just seemed tired and unsteady, weaving a little as he walked.

“Quentin,” said Jane, quickening her step to be beside him instead of behind, “I can carry you.”

“Uh,” he said, glancing at her and then away and turning red, “No, I’m good. I can make it.” He missed his footing and pitched forward, and Jane caught him.

“Are you sure about that?” she asked, helping him back upright.

“Uh-huh,” he said, flushed and embarrassed. “Sorry—I’m fine. Just a little…off. Today. I got fucked up yesterday. But it’s fine. It’s—it’s right up this way. We’re close,” he hurried, wrapping his arms around himself and his torn up shirt again and motioning with a wrist to the generator only about thirty feet ahead now.

 _Kind of cute,_ thought Jane in spite of everything, smiling at him as he cleared his throat and kept going, still unsteady but watching his footing more carefully now. _It’s really funny that I still have celebrity pull in hell. You really need to accept help, though. You need it._

“Come here,” said Jane, holding out an arm.

He paused and looked at her, confused.

 _Okay, don’t come here,_ thought Jane, walking over beside him and stooping too fast for him to really have a chance to react, and then quickly hooking an arm under his knees and lifting up.

“Hey—wait, what are—,” he lost his footing and fell back as she picked him up like she had before.

“You’re hurt, and I’m strong enough to carry you,” said Jane, smiling at him with the calmly assured _don’t try me honey_ tone her dad used to use on her, “Stop being obstinate.”

He turned red and didn’t answer her, just looked a little mortified and stared at her, too surprised to respond.

“Come on,” said Jane, walking towards the generator and feeling contented by the success.

Quentin didn’t fight her or say anything as she walked, and when she reached the generator, she set him down. He straightened himself a little, still flushed, and ran a hand through his hair, not looking at her, then cleared his throat. “Thanks,” he said, still looking at the ground, “Sorry.”

“You’re fine,” said Jane, “So, how do we fix a generator?”

“I can show you,” said Quentin, still not making eye contact, but recovering a little and kneeling by the machine, motioning Jane to do the same, “I really wish I had a toolbox with me. That makes the whole job a lot easier. But it’s not too hard.”

She was proud of herself for making him let her help, but as she looked at the generator, everything suddenly felt painfully strange, and off, and arbitrary, and surreal to Jane, but she didn’t have any better leads to follow. _What else am I going to do,_ thought Jane dolefully, _walk around and try to just see what happens and hope I don’t get found by the masked guy? That sounds like a fantastic plan if I ever heard one._

Worse but true, she did believe him. Everything he’d said. It was wrong, but she’d wanted to believe it when he said it—like she’d wanted to fix the generator; it was innate. She just felt sure. Sure that what she was hearing was true. Jane didn’t like that, but she couldn’t control it either. _At least I’m not alone,_ thought Jane, _And whatever is going on, I’ve helped him a little. And he’s helped me. It’s definitely better not to be alone._

“Okay,” said Quentin, reaching past some open metal panels and pointing out an array of loose wires and panels in the underbelly of the machine. “It’s not super hard. A lot of it’s pretty basic. Tightening screws, securing wires. Sometimes things won’t be connected at all and you need to figure out what goes where, and you’ll shock yourself if you aren’t careful. There are usually gears that need to be lined up like this,” he added, demonstrating with a few in the generator. “You have to be careful not to do things wrong, because if you backfire the generator, it’s loud, and someone like the guy you saw earlier will probably come check it out and find you. The rest of it isn’t so bad. Patch or tighten anything that leaks. Sometimes there’ll be broken springs, or wires too torn up to work anymore. It there are, you can always find something that’s not really necessary to the generator and take it from there and move it to where you need it, but figuring that out takes a little practice. I’ll try to point that kind of thing out if I see any on this one.”

“I’m not sure this is how generators typically look,” said Jane, giving the machine a suspicious once-over, “Or work.”

“It’s definitely not,” said Quentin, connecting two wires and listening to the generator to make sure he was doing it right, “But a lot of stuff here doesn’t really work like it should.”

“Did you have to learn how to do that,” asked Jane, feeling the same unsettling urge to jump right in and get repairing that she’d felt earlier, “Or did you just sort of…”

“Know?” he finished, glancing up at her.

She nodded.

“Both,” he said, “But you’re right. Some things you just know automatically here. It’s not fun, is it?” he added after a second, and when she looked up, he was watching her, and he looked as worn out and sad as she felt. “Feeling like someone poked around in your head and changed things while you weren’t looking.”

“No,” agreed Jane sincerely, “I don’t like it at all.”

“Yeah,” he said, voice sympathetic and tired, “Me either.”

 _I’ll bet,_ thought Jane, looking from him down at the array of wires and gears by her fingers and carefully moving a broken cog out of the way. It felt strange. So strange. And Jane hesitated. _Am I just supposed to do this?_ she wondered, _Even…Even if he’s right? About all of it? Do I just do it? Join him, and give in and accept whatever this place is? What would happen if I didn’t—I’d be killed? Is that it; die or submit?_

She wanted to think she would fight that. But thinking ‘death first’ was easy. The idea of actually dying? No, if he was right and they either got the door open and got out, or were killed by the man in the mask, she would do it. She was sure. She would struggle again and again to try not to be killed, even if she always just ended up back here in this swamp again.

 _That’s not fair,_ thought Jane, staring at her frozen hands, _It’s not really a choice. Give up and die, or submit and struggle and suffer? They’re the same, just one takes longer._

“You said there are others like you and Kate?” asked Jane, breaking her tableau and slowly moving to accept the fate. She found a screw so loose it was almost hanging from a thread, and she began to turn it. Not even sure if the thing mattered, or what it would fix, or if it really mattered to this thing that wasn’t quite a real generator if the screw did anything at all. “How many?”

“Uh,” said Quentin, pausing in his work to think a second, “Counting you and me? Fifteen.”

“And you’ve been here…a long time?” asked Jane, feeling the screw stop moving, tightened completely. It was such an empty success.

“Yeah,” said Quentin, a little quieter. When she glanced at him, he looked far away.

 _If this is all there is, what’s the point?_ thought Jane, suddenly overwhelmed again and hopeless and still trying to even begin to accept a reality like that, _I worked so hard. I tried. My whole life. And that’s just over now? I lose everything? My mother takes away in two hours what I spent thirty-eight years trying to build, everyone I tried to help, everything I tried to change and become, and all that’s left for me is to slowly die in this place? Why. Why try? What’s the point?_

Her hands hurt—not like before, but steadily, and it was distracting thinking about the way the cracks and burns underneath the clean white gauze had looked, but not distracting enough to really occupy her.

_There’s nothing. There’s nothing left._

“If everything just repeats. Over and over, no matter what. …Is it really worth it? Doing this to survive a little longer?” asked Jane, feeling distant, like she was underwater somewhere, maybe still in the Atlantic, sinking.

He looked up at her in surprise. “Yes,” he answered immediately, “It…” he looked down at the generator for a second and stopped working himself.

 _I shouldn’t have asked that,_ thought Jane, watching him and still feeling unreal herself, but guilty too, _I think it hurt him._

“It’s not all bad,” he answered after a moment, glancing her way and then back at the generator, hands moving slowly and then more surely and quickly along it as he began to work again, “You’ll see when you meet the others.”

 

* * *

 

 

It didn’t take long with two people working together for the generator to light, even with Jane never having done it before.

“That’s two,” said Quentin, standing up and using the generator to support himself as he scanned the nearby terrain. “It’s weird—usually you gotta hide after turning one on, because someone like the guy with the mask you saw will come try to find whoever turned it on, but I don’t see him or hear him at all. I haven’t the whole time, and no one has turned on another generator either, even though there should be two more of us—Kate and someone else. That’s probably not good,” he added, sounding nervous, “Usually that means something really, really bad is happening.”

“Really, _really_ bad?” asked Jane, not sure she wanted to know what that meant.

“Oh, wait,” said Quentin, voice hushed. He grabbed Jane’s sleeve and tugged her towards him, pointing to a large fallen tree nearby, “There’s something in the weeds coming fast,” he whispered.

Jane turned to look and picked out the movement he’d seen. Someone was coming at a run. She felt her heart speed up, and turned to hurry with him towards the tree. They’d only gone about three steps when he tugged on her arm and stopped her again. She looked at him in surprise and then over her shoulder.

“It’s okay,” said Quentin, sounding relieved, “That’s just Kate. I couldn’t tell at first.”

The girl Jane could see weaving fast through the walls between them and hurrying towards the generator they’d just lit did match the description she’d been given. Long curly blonde hair, tall, sleeve tattoo with flowers.

 _Oh good,_ thought Jane, trying to calm down again, _Alright. No danger._

The blonde reached the base of the hill they were on and looked up and saw them, and her face lit up, and then was immediately replaced by surprise and confusion and disbelief as she looked from Quentin to Jane.

“Oh my god,” she saw the girl whisper to herself, years of lip-reading prompts while on live tv paying off, “That really is Jane Romero.”

 _How did she know I was here?_ thought Jane, a little suspicious.

Kate took off up the hill then, running until she reached them, and she put her arms around Quentin and pulled him against her chest for a second, breathing hard but smiling.

“Thank god, you’re alright?” she confirmed, letting go and putting her hands on his shoulders to get a good look at Quentin.

“Yeah,” he said, smiling at her. “You?”

She nodded. “And you’re…you’re Jane Romero?” asked Kate, straightening up and offering Jane a hand.

“Uh, yes, I am,” said Jane, still trying to figure out why this girl seemed to have known she was here already. A little bit concerned, Jane took the hand and shook it anyway.

“She saved me,” said Quentin, “From Legion—earlier.”

“I know,” said Kate, “He was bitchin’ about it.”

“He—what?—when?” asked Quentin, confused, “Are—are you sure you’re okay? You’re bleeding pretty bad.”

Kate looked down at the long gash across her chest and a stab wound in her left arm that was leaking blood. “Oh, this? Ain’t nothin’,” said Kate, “You should see the other guy.”

 _‘Ain’t nothin’’?_ thought Jane, staring, _I’d hate to see what ‘something’ looks like._

“Other—wait, did you _fight_ him?” asked Quentin, trying to catch up. She was beaming before he’d even totally finished the question, and he stared at her in disbelief. “Oh god—Kate—you did—are you okay? Let—let me take a look at that.”

“It’s fine,” said Kate again, very proud of herself, “But we gotta get back to the house. I kicked his ass and left him with Jeff and a broken arm, but I don’t want to leave the two of them alone too long.”

“What’s going on?” asked Jane, turning to Quentin.

“Uh, I’m not,” answered Quentin, looking from her to Kate, “You… _beat_ him?” he asked.

Kate nodded, grinning.

Quentin just stared at her.

“I…” he said after a second, looking dumbfounded, “I didn’t think we could… _do_ that.”

“Well, we did,” said Kate proudly, “Come on.”

 _Okay,_ thought Jane, doing her best to put it together on her own, _She and some other guy kicked the masked man’s ass, and broke his arm. That’s great, right? I think._

“Oh, I’m Kate Denson,” said Kate, turning back to Jane, “Always been a big fan of your show. Read the book, too—in college.”

“Uhm, thank you,” said Jane cordially, trying to process that. _It’s only been out like a year. Someone really worked that into their curriculum fast. Oh dear, if she’s read it, I hope she liked it. I hope she hasn’t read any of the reviews…_

“Let’s go,” said Kate again, turning and starting off.

Quentin looked from her to Jane and gave her a kind of apologetic gesture, and followed. Jane went after him.

“How did you beat him?” asked Quentin, struggling to keep up with Kate’s fast pace on his bad leg.

“All that practice with Jake paid off,” answered Kate, “Got the drop on him easy, and once he was on the ground, I got him in a leg lock.”

“Wow,” said Quentin, still looking like he was having a hard time believing this.

“How long you been here?” asked Kate, glancing behind her at Jane.

“It’s her first trial,” answered Quentin before she had a chance to.

Kate’s expression changed and she gave Jane a deeply sympathetic look. “I’m real sorry. We all probably sound out of our damn minds, huh?”

“A little bit,” agreed Jane, having an out of body experience for maybe the eighth time that day, “But at this point…” she shrugged.

_At this point what? I’m just along for the ride, waiting to see what happens or to wake up? I’m not even sure at this point, and I am me._

“Jeff’s the guy from last time?” asked Quentin, looking from Kate to the building up ahead through the weeds, coming up fast. “The one who helped you and David and me?”

“Oh—yeah—yeah, sorry, that’s him,” said Kate, “It’s uh—I’m still runnin’ on adrenaline, not thinkin’ clear.”

“This is really good,” said Quentin, sounding incredibly happy and relieved, almost excited as he looked over his shoulder at Jane, “If we don’t have to worry much about Legion, it means all four of us can get out of here together—We can get you back to our camp without you even having to get hurt.”

“That’s unusual?” asked Jane, pretty sure she knew the answer.

“Yeah,” answered Kate, “Almost never happens.”

_Ah. Okay. Okay, well. Just keep following, just keep up. You’ll have time to think and try to figure this all out once you get somewhere safer. I know this whole situation is really bad, but just stay calm and level, Jane. You can do this._

“And you can help him once we get out?” asked Jane, glancing at Quentin, who was keeping up pretty well, but limping. It looked painful. She had to fight the urge to just pick him up again.

“Yeah,” answered Quentin for himself, looking embarrassed, “I’ll be okay.”

 _That’s good,_ thought Jane, following Kate to an old wood ramp leading to the second floor of the large rotting building ahead.

“Jeff!” called Kate, speeding up as she went up the ramp, “You still okay?”

“Yeah,” came back a man’s voice. Quentin and Jane hurried along behind Kate, him using the wall to try and make the speed-walk up easier on himself, Jane lingering beside him in case he fell. He didn’t, though, and they made it to the top together and turned and took in the sight ahead.

The man Jane had seen earlier was laying on his back on the wooden planks, a bearded man more like Jane’s own age sitting on top of him to pin him down and holding a knife. It took Jane a second to be sure the black-clad man being pinned down really was the same one as earlier for sure, because his mask was off, but she saw it laying off to the side by him, and the rest of his outfit was the same. His right arm hung at an impossible angle, bending like a rubber band as if there was no bone at all beneath the skin, and in spite of knowing what the man on the floor was, Jane winced sympathetically at the sight.

The man Quentin had called “Legion” a few times, although Jane wasn’t sure if that was a name or a title of some sort, looked up at them as they came, angry and humiliated and embarrassed, and then looked away from them. Jane could see his breathing speed up.

“If we kill him, does he come back like we do?” Jane asked Quentin quietly, still not totally sure she believed the assumed truths behind that question.

“I don’t know,” answered Quentin, eyes big and fixed on the man who’d been going to kill him earlier, “We’ve never done it.”

“Is that what we do, then?” said Jane, turning to Kate this time. “I know I haven’t done this before, but Quentin said there are about seventeen of the people like him? If we can kill all seventeen, would we stop being in danger?” asked Jane.

The guy on the ground turned and looked back at them then, eyes big himself, and then from them to the man on top of him with the knife, almost pleadingly.

“I don’t really know,” said Kate, “That’s a good question though. I think the Entity’d find some way to cheat and bring them back, or just get new ones, but you never know.”

“The Entity?” asked Jane.

“The thing I told you about,” said Quentin, “It’s this giant spider monster thing—it’s what got you.”

 _God, I really hope I got depressed and did massive amounts of LSD with someone in the back of an IHop parking lot on my way to dad’s,_ thought Jane dismally, resisting the urge to rub her eyes to try and clear her head.

“You really are Jane Romero, aren’t you,” said the bearded man. Jeff.

“Yes,” said Jane, too tired to turn on the charm anymore.

“This is her first trial,” added Quentin.

“Oh. Wow. Uh, nice to meet you,” said the bearded man. “I’m Jeff Johansen. I’m pretty new here too—a couple weeks maybe. It’s rough. First time you really think you’re drugged or hallucinating and need to go to an ER. It gets easier, though—at least a lot of it does. I promise.”

Jane nodded, wishing he hadn’t said that because she was still sort of hoping somehow she _was_ hallucinating, but feeling a little bit better too. _You’re new like me. That’s good—that’s nice. Maybe that means you can explain things to me later and they’ll make sense._ She noticed then that the man on the ground was staring at her.

“What?” she asked, looking from him to the others around her, “Why’s he doing that.”

As soon as she said it the guy looked away. Jane had thought when he’d had the mask on that he was a man, but up close he looked younger—probably something close to Quentin’s age.

 _I can’t believe someone so young would be out here killing people,_ thought Jane, more sad than angry, _What kind of life gets someone to that?_

“Probably because you’re Jane Romero,” answered Quentin, clearing his throat and looking a little bit awkward still himself.

 _I can’t believe they care about that if we’re really in some pocket time loop hell with a monster god,_ thought Jane, eyes darting from one to the other of the people around her.

It was uncomfortably silent for a few seconds.

“Uhm, thank you,” said Quentin finally, taking a step towards Jeff, “Kate and David told me what you did. I’d be dead. And…I’m. I’m sorry, about what happened to you because of me.”

Jane didn’t know what any of that meant, but the boy looked miserable and guilty and sad and ashamed, and the man just looked relieved and sympathetic, and he smiled at Quentin and nodded.

“I’m just happy you’re alive—I still don’t totally know what was going on,” said Jeff, “But I’m glad you made it. Looks like he got you pretty bad. You gonna be okay?”

Quentin nodded.

“Gonna have some pretty sick scars,” said Jeff, motioning to the one on his own face, “Probably hurts a lot, but trust me—they look badass.”

He didn’t say anything, and Quentin looked like he wasn’t sure if that made him happy or sad to hear, but after a second he sort of nodded again and gave a tired smile.

“So, uh,” said Quentin, looking from Jeff to Kate to Jane to the guy on the floor, “What now?”

“I guess we do the gens,” said Kate, “But what about him?” she pointed at the man on the ground with his broken arm.

“You said you weren’t going to kill me,” reminded the guy nervously, looking around the group, but especially lingering on Jeff again.

“Yeah,” admitted Kate, “But I did say I was gonna cut off your hands.”

The guy on the floor’s eyes flickered to Jeff, pleading.

“You really want to do that?” asked Jeff like he didn’t think she did, looking up at Kate.

Kate shrugged. “Don’t know next time we’ll ever beat one of them in a fight. Seems like a shame to just let him walk. By all rights, I should kill you,” she said to the guy on the ground, “I don’t really want to, because I’m not so big on killin’, but you’ve done more’n enough to my friends that I should make an exception.”

“But,” said the guy on the floor, pretty worried now, looking from her to Jeff, “You said—it’s—You can’t do that—we-we kill you because we have to.”

“We shouldn’t kill him,” said Jeff, “I don’t know what happened to him here, but he wasn’t so bad back home. And he apologized while you were gone, for killing me before.”

“Did he?” asked Kate suspiciously, glaring at Legion.

Legion didn’t look like he wanted to admit it, but his eyes darted nervously from her to Jeff and he nodded. Kate didn’t look entirely convinced.

“Okay, no killing,” she said finally, voice still pretty hostile, “But we should do somethin’ to make sure he can’t just keep hurting us. We don’t know they stay hurt after for sure, but we saw...” she stopped and glanced at Quentin and reconsidered, “We’ve seen one of the killers get hurt in a trial and stay hurt,” she said instead after a second, “Almost died. So we got reason to believe he won’t patch up like us. Choppin’ off his hands ain’t a bad idea. We could sew the stumps shut so he don’t bleed to death.”

“No, come on,” choked out Legion, looking from her to Jeff pleadingly. He turned his head towards Jane and Quentin then. “You—you’re Jane Romero,” he said hopefully, “You wouldn’t—you wouldn’t do that to someone, right?”

“You kill people though, don’t you?” asked Jane, not sure how to feel. Instinctively, she wanted to feel bad for him, because he was pretty young and injured and afraid and close to begging not to be hurt. But she’d also seen him grabbing Quentin and dragging him around by his throat, stabbing him for fun and threatening to kill him on one of the awful looking meat hooks. Quentin said he’d done it before—killed them. Killed him and his friends, and would do it to her if he found them. So, if he was some sadistic murderer who’d finally had his karma catch up to him…

“I—but,” said Legion, a little desperate, “Jeff,” he pleaded, looking up at him, “Come on—I—I need hands. It won’t stop the other Legion members from hunting you guys. It’ll just make them angry. They’ll really go after you all—for revenge.”

“They already do, though,” said Kate, “You can’t threaten us a whole lot when you already murder us regular.”

“But—,” he looked at Quentin, “—You—I was okay to you today. I was going to just hook you without cutting you up. Come on.”

“That’s not _that_ nice,” said Quentin.

The guy on the ground swallowed hard.

“But he did do that,” relented Quentin, turning to Kate, “Maybe we can do something that’s not cut off his hands. I’m not saying he’s a good person, but he’s not the worst one here.”

“Y’all are too nice,” said Kate, shooting daggers towards Legion, “He don’t deserve that much pity.”

“I’m with Quentin,” said Jeff, “I know it’s probably because we used to know each other, but he gave up. It seems pretty shitty to do anything too bad now.”

“He was gonna kill you,” said Kate to Jeff, “Just a few minutes ago, before I showed up. Chop you up for fun.”

“I know,” said Jeff, looking down at Legion, who looked absolutely miserable, “And you’re probably right. But just the same.”

Kate gave Legion a really hard look, considering.

 _I think I’m with Kate on this,_ thought Jane, _No matter that he was going to kill Quentin less painfully or something. If what they’re saying is true, he’s murdered them before. He’s probably mostly acting apologetic because he’s smart enough to know he has no power, and that’s his best move. If they let him go, and he’s the kind of person who tortures and kills others for sport, he’s very likely to just go after them with renewed hatred and hurt them even worse than before, to reassert his dominance and heal his pride. Usually that kind of behavior is a fucked-up power dream along with dehumanization of others. Maybe I should say that out loud—I think they might let him go._

“I don’t know,” said Kate. “Hey Joey,” she said, walking over until she was right above the person Quentin had called ‘Legion’ and she’d just called ‘Joey’. “You don’t want to get killed, but you ain’t gonna change, are you? We let you go, and next trial, you’ll go back to normal.”

Joey looked nervous. “No, I—I’ll…”

 _He didn’t have a lie prepared,_ thought Jane, _Interesting. Not that strategic, then. He’s trying to think on his feet._

“You’ll what?” asked Kate, “Let us go, and get in trouble with the Entity?”

“I’ll…I’ll do it faster, less cutting,” said Joey hurriedly, “And I’ll let one of you go, always. That’s—that’s fair? Right?”

 _Wow, he doesn’t think on his feet very well,_ thought Jane.

“No, jackass,” said Kate, “So you will go right back to murdering us, then.”

Jeff gave him an _I can’t believe you actually just said that to her_ look.

“But I don’t have a choice,” said Joey desperately, “That’s how it has to be—otherwise I’ll get erased by the Entity.”

Quentin looked thoughtful beside Jane. Jeff was watching Kate, who considered that for a second.

“That makes it fine to you to kill us?” she asked, “Torture and kill other people forever to save your own skin?”

This time Joey didn’t answer.

 _Oh, he gave up,_ thought Jane, _That’s surprising. Okay, so he didn’t know what he was going to do. And he still doesn’t. Interesting._

“Why don’t we take him back with us?” said Quentin.

“What?” asked Joey, looking at Quentin in surprise.

“I mean, we can,” said Quentin, “Through the hatch. That way he doesn’t go back to killing us, and we don’t have to chop off his hands or something. Maybe we can even use that to get some information, or to get the rest of the Legion to leave us alone in trials for a while.”

“What?” said Joey again, more panicked, “No! You can’t do that!”

“That’s not a bad idea,” said Kate, “But what if we piss off the Entity doin’ that? I don’t want to get people hurt over him. Although, if we get its attention ourselves,” she added suddenly, considering, “We could maybe tell it about what happened with the Nightmare and Clown, since we know they ain’t supposed to do that kinda thing.”

Quentin looked surprised, and then hopeful. “Do you—do you think that might work? I didn’t—but, but you’re right,” he said, brightening up considerably, “Phi—uh,” he said, hurrying to cover whatever he’d almost said, “—we know it uses us like food now, so I guess that means it would be probably pretty mad if one of us got killed for real without permission. You think it would care?” he asked like he was afraid to hope for that.

“Worth a shot,” said Kate, “And if it wants to use us so bad, I don’t think it’d kill-kill anyone, even if we snatched a killer to get its attention. It’s risky, but maybe we should.”

“No!” said Joey from the ground, “No, you can’t! If I got captured, I’d be in huge trouble! It might kill me!”

“That seems pretty extreme for the Entity,” said Kate, “We know some of the other killers done a lot worse than that, and just got reprimanded. You’ll be fine.”

“What? No won’t!” said Joey, starting to struggle underneath Jeff and thrash, trying to get him off, “No! You can’t do that! Help!”

“Stop it,” said Jeff, trying to make him quit moving without fucking up the broken arm, “Joey—she’s not gonna kill you. It wouldn’t be so bad to—”

“No!” screamed Joey again, fighting harder, kicking and flailing and screaming, “No! You can’t! I won’t go!”

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” said Jeff, giving Kate the knife quickly and then struggling to hold Joey down with both arms, “Calm down!”

He kept screaming.

“You can’t take me! I’m not going!” He managed to get Jeff in the nose with his good elbow, but Jeff stayed on him.

“Help! I won’t go!” shouted Joey.

“Joey, Joey listen to me,” said Jeff, confused and concerned as he fought to hold him down, “You aren’t going to die. I promised—just calm down!”

Jane stared at the man on the ground fighting like he was fighting for his life, screaming and thrashing, even with a broken arm. Screaming like he thought it would work. She looked over at Quentin, a bad feeling settling in her chest. “Who’s he calling for?”

 

* * *

 

 

“You don’t _get_ another trial until you agree to cut the shit,” said Frank angrily.

“You aren’t the boss of me!” said Susie, “The Entity is! What if it gives us a trial where we don’t get to pick who goes—huh? It does that if one of us stays out of rotation too long, and you know it! You gonna backtalk it to keep me her?”

“If I have to,” snapped Frank.

“Guys,” said Julie.

“No—she’s being unreasonable!” said Frank, “ _She’s_ the one who needs to listen!”

“Oh, why don’t you go cry about it!” said Susie. “I’m not listening to ANYONE anymore. I’m doing what _I_ want!”

“Guys!” snapped Julie.

“What?” asked Frank angrily.

“Do you hear Joey?” she asked.

“Do—what?” asked Frank, stopping to listen.

“I heard his voice—I think he called us,” said Julie, sounding worried.

“So what,” said Frank, “If he’s having trouble catching them on his own, that’s his fault—I told him not to expect any team assistance. I’ve got Susie to deal with—I can’t fucking fix everyone’s problems at the same time. He’s gonna have to deal.”

“No, you’re not listening,” said Julie, voice urgent, “I don’t think this is normal.”

“What do you mean,” asked Susie, a little concerned herself now because of how worried Julie seemed. She stopped and listened too.

_“Help! I’m not going!”_

“You heard it this time, right?” asked Julie.

“Yeah,” said Frank, serious now too.

“What does he mean ‘I’m not going,’” asked Susie, “Going where?”

_“Please! I don’t know what to do! They’re going to take me!”_

“I need to see,” said Frank, pushing past Julie and Susie.

 

* * *

 

 

Joey had been alone the whole trial, and he was alone now, and scared. Jeff was on top of him wrestling with him, but he wasn’t going to quit this time. He thrashed and struggled, trying hard to kick Jeff off him, pushing through the overwhelming agony in his arm. _Take me back as a prisoner to show the Entity—to get information out of? Fuck—fuck, no, no, no, no—I’d be in so much trouble. They’ll probably beat the shit out of me, and then the Entity’s going to fuck me up—I won’t go!_

“Joey, stop!” said Jeff, trying hard to pin him down, “All you’re gonna do is hurt yourself worse!”

“For fuck’s sake,” said Kate, joining Jeff and adding more arms to struggle against.

_No, no, no, no!_

“Help me!” screamed Joey again, hoping against hope that the others would hear him—they had to. _We’re in this together, we’re in this together._

_“What’s going on?”_

It was Frank’s voice. He could hear it in his head.

 _Oh thank god,_ thought Joey, overwhelmed with relief. “I—I’m in trouble. I really fucked up. She broke my arm, and I lost the knife, and they want to drag me back to their camp as a prisoner. Please, you have to help me!”

Above him, Jeff looked confused, and glanced behind himself, then back at Joey, like he was trying to figure out if he was talking to him.

“Listen,” said Kate, leaning in and putting the knife dangerously close to his chest and throat, “Quit this. You’re lucky we don’t want you dead or somethin’. Getting’ dragged back with us is far from bein’ the worst thing that coulda happened to you.”

“Who’s he talking to?” came Jane Romero’s voice from past where he could see.

 _“You did what?”_ asked Frank.

 _“How did you lose the knife?”_ came Julie’s voice in his head, _“Shit—Joey, how bad is it? Can’t you still fight? Use the Entity’s gift.”_

“I tried,” he said back, breathing hard and struggling a little less with the threat of the knife so close to his throat, “Something’s wrong with me—I don’t’ know what, and my good arm’s fucked.”

 _“Are you okay?”_ It was Susie this time.

 _“No,”_ said Frank in his head, grim and tense. Joey could tell he was thinking fast. _“No, he’s not.”_

“Guys, I don’t know what to do,” said Joey, looking from the knife to Kate, “Please, what do I do?”

“Just stop fighting,” said Kate, thinking he was talking to her but looking almost as confused as Jeff did.

“Here—you’re freaking him out,” said Jeff, holding his hand out for the knife, “Because you broke his arm—Let me.”

Kate passed him the knife and placed her hands on Joey’s shoulders, keeping him down.

 _“Can you—can you kick them off?”_ asked Julie _, “Or grab the knife?”_

“I’ve tried that,” said Joey, heart thudding in his chest as he took in the confusion on Jeff’s face that was almost suspicion.

“Well, not for very long,” said Kate, still assuming he was talking to her, “And Jeff didn’t hurt you when you stopped, did he? You’re calming down a little and he’s not stabbing you right now.”

 _“What’s happening?”_ asked Frank, voice taught _, “Catch me up.”_

“They’re going to take me back with them to their camp as a prisoner, to get the Entity’s attention,” said Joey frantically, “My arm’s broke and I can’t get free. I’m—I’m dead. What do I do? What should I do?”

“Is he okay?” asked Quentin past the people on top of Joey, “Is he…hallucinating?”

“No,” came Jane Romero’s voice, “No, he’s talking to someone.”

“Not us?” said Kate, glancing away from him.

 _Shit—shit they’re onto us,_ thought Joey. “Fast,” he said out loud. _Tell me what to do, Frank. Tell me fast._ “Anything—anything, I’ll do it. Just get me out of this. You can, right?”

 _“Okay,”_ said Frank, voice a little frantic himself, _“Okay, hang on. Okay, okay, I’m coming in.”_

 _“You’re what?”_ asked Julie, aghast.

Joey could feel him then. A second presence in his body, taking over it.

 _“Frank! Frank don’t!”_ shouted Julie in his head, _“That’s against the rules! We can’t swap out once a trial starts! The Entity—!”_

 _“—Then I get punished!”_ snapped Frank, and Joey could feel them fighting. Frank fighting to get inside, Julie trying to stop him. _“I’m not leaving him to die!”_

 _“Joey,”_ begged Julie, _“Joey—stop him!”_

 _“No,”_ said Susie, struggling to drag Julie back, _“Frank’s right—he’s in trouble! We can’t leave him!”_

 _“We won’t leave him!”_ said Julie, frantic, _“But he can’t do this! Whatever the Entity does, if he gets caught, it’ll be worse—worse for both of them!”_

 _“Then shut up and don’t draw attention!”_ yelled Susie, and then the struggle was over.

Joey felt Frank inside the body. There was never more than one in the body at a time, the other three left inside the back of the head, floating around, waiting for a turn, and it was strange, and surreal. Both of them at once. And then they were switching, and he was being pushed back as Frank took over, and he was watching from behind the eyes, not the eyes themselves.

 _Thank you, thank you, thank you,_ thought Joey, about to pass out from relief, _Oh god, Frank, I thought it was over._

In front of the others, Joey’s body started to twitch, and suddenly an array of sparks flashed along it, followed by bright burning patterns like appeared on them when they dissolved into a trial, and as the four of them watched in horror, the body beneath Kate and Jeff changed shape. Shorter legs, a leather jacket, and then the arm set itself and changed length and there was a different man on the ground, brown hair and dark eyes flashing hatred.

“Frank?” said Jeff, staring in shock.

Using the surprise, Frank’s hand shot forward and he rammed his fist into Jeff’s nose, snapping his head back and catching onto the hand with the knife before Jeff had a chance to recover. Seeing him go for the knife, Kate brought her elbow down into his chest and Frank tucked his knee in and kicked her in the chest. She managed to hold onto the leg as he pushed her back, using it to drag herself back on top of him. As she did, Frank flooded his body with the Entity’s speed and strength and he tore the knife out of Jeff’s hand just in time to rake it across Kate’s nose as she lunged at him.

Even with blood gushing down her face, Kate didn’t falter. She got her hands around his throat and started choking, dragging him forward and then ramming his head back against the wood planks with all her might as she did, and head stinging from the blow, Frank brought the knife down into her back between the shoulders. Kate screamed, and Jeff made a grab for Frank’s arm as he dragged the knife out of her back, catching it and grappling before he had a chance to hit Kate again. Jeff was strong, but he was bleeding badly from the stab wounds in his back and shoulder Joey had inflicted, and with his free left hand Frank jabbed his fingers into the cut in the arm and tore, and Jeff cried out and Frank wrenched the hand with the knife free and brought the blade down into his chest, then turned on Kate.

He swung at her chest and she threw herself backwards onto the deck, evading the swipe, and Frank grabbed onto her foot and dragged her towards him, knife raised. The Legion was a harrowing sight, orange flames flickering up and down its form, faint traces of Joey’s black cloth beneath the leather jacket every few seconds, leaking sparks and orange light, face seething with anger and vicious intent to kill, spattered with more blood than was left on the blade itself as he loomed over her and then lunged.

A stream of hesitationless violence, Frank dug the blade into Kate’s leg and she kicked him with the other one, snapping his head to the side and breaking his nose, but he tore the knife free and raised it again, dragging her closer to him, and then Quentin slammed into him, knocking him off her and onto the wood floor with him, landing on top. Screaming in rage, Frank dug the knife into Quentin’s side and threw him off himself with both arms, staggering to his feet once he was free of the weight, just in time to hear a crack behind him.

He turned, and saw a huge box the size of an old tube tv shatter into dust, and Jane Romero standing behind him looking at the wooden ashes of a box that had just betrayed her in shock.

Frank double-took. “Jane Romero?”

Jeff slammed into his side, knocking them both against the old wooden wall, grappling for the knife.

“You—fucking,” Frank said through clenched teeth, flooding himself with the Entity’s strength again to break free of Jeff’s hold on the hand with the knife and furious that the man was still up at all. He tore his hand free and stabbed the blade into Jeff’s shoulder, then rammed his left fist into his face, sending him to the ground, hard.

 _He’s doing it,_ thought Joey, staring at the violence before him and unable to feel anything but surprise as it happened. _I should have known. Nobody can beat Frank. It’s all okay._

There was a scream, and Jane Romero grabbed Frank from behind, trying to pin his arms down with one arm and choke him with the other, tucking her legs up around his waist and using her weight to drag them both to the ground. It worked, and he fell backwards with her, slamming into the wood floor and struggling to get free. Joey saw her close her eyes and brace, focusing on nothing but not letting go as she waited for Frank to stab her. And he did, bringing the knife in deep into her hip, then tearing it free as she screamed and dragging it through the arm around his throat. Jane let go, crying out in pain and falling back, and Frank dragged himself up and turned on her and kicked her in the chest, ramming her against the ground.

It was strange, seeing that happen to Jane Romero. Joey felt strange about it. She was staring at the arm and the bone in it she could see in horror, with Frank’s boot on her chest.

“You think you can touch us?!” shouted Frank, whirling on the injured people bleeding on the ground around him, “The Legion? Well you fucked up! We’re strong, we’re together, and we’re unbeatable! And you all need to be taught a lesson!”

Seething and breathing hard and bleeding from his broken nose, Frank scanned the fallen people as Kate dragged herself up, using a barrel to help her support weight the leg Frank had torn through was having trouble bearing. She squared her shoulders and balled her hands into fists, looking for all the world as fierce as he did.

“She broke your arm?” asked Frank, voice dripping with malice.

 _“Yeah,”_ answered Joey from inside.

“You fucked up,” said Frank, pointing to Kate with the knife.

“Yeah, well you’re all talk, pretty boy,” said Kate, blood dripping down her face from the gash across her nose, “I beat your friend, and I can sure as hell beat you too.”

Frank grinned, and there was blood in his teeth, making the smile red like the one on his missing mask.

Screaming like a battle cry, Frank ran at her, and Kate braced. He slammed into her and she took the blow in her shoulder, yanking herself forward and digging her teeth into his neck. Joey was still inside the body and he could feel the sting, and Frank shouted in fury and pain and threw her onto the ground, landing on top of her with a hand around her neck, moving the hand with the knife up to his neck to feel the pain.

“You fucking bitch!” he shouted, raising the knife over her face, “You think you’re such hot shit? You’re nothing!”

 _Wait,_ thought Joey, feeling a little sick as he saw the knife ready to go down into her chest, remembering in his head the way Jeff had described it—the way the blonde girl he had killed had looked when he’d been doing it.

Kate was furious and still fighting beneath Frank, but she had to be scared too, right? Like he had been when she was on top.

_Fuck…I don’t…_

And then something hit Frank and pulled him backwards off of her, and looking through Frank’s eyes as he tore free of the hold on his shoulders and turned, dragging himself to his feet, Joey could see it was Jeff. Bleeding and weak, but somehow still going.

“Why can’t you stay fucking down!” shouted Frank furiously, swinging the knife at him.

Jeff moved just barely out of the way, the knife leaving only a thin red line in what should have been a deep gash in his arm, and rammed his fist into Frank’s face. “Frank Morrison!” shouted Jeff, “Stop going around fucking murdering people!”

“Don’t!” shouted Frank, punctuating the words with swipes as he lunged and Jeff tried to move, “Fucking! Tell me! What! To do!”

The blows hit Jeff, one after another, thin cuts in his arms as he tried to shield himself, and then Frank leapt at the larger man and dug the knife into his stomach, hard, knocking him onto the ground, shaking with rage.

“You all think you can fuck up me and my people?!” shouted Frank, towering over Jeff as he bled, “I will personally rip the guts out of every single one of you and hang you with them the next time you _look_ at one of us!”

Intense anger Joey could feel too coursed through the shared body and shot through them, intensifying as Frank raised the knife over Jeff.

 _He’s gonna gut him,_ realized Joey, suddenly panicking. _Wait. Wait—Wait, I._

 _“Frank!”_ shouted Joey inside the head, _“Frank wait! That’s Jeff—Jeff Johansen from school—don’t do it—he was trying to help me before! I don’t want you to kill him!”_

“What?” said Frank, hesitating for just a half a second, but far too furious to listen, “What? –No. No, I don’t care what you want! Nobody fucks with my crew!” He raised the blade above his head with both hands and swung the knife down.

 _“Frank, don’t!”_ shouted Joey, fighting with all his might to regain control of his body.

Frank’s body shuddered and froze up, jerking, the knife an inch from Jeff’s chest as he stared at it.

“No!” shouted Joey, this time from the body’s mouth. The form over Jeff flickered between two different faces, body parts rippling with golden flames, changing from one to the other in waves, sometimes both at once.

“What are you doing?” asked Frank, both of them speaking from the body now, angry and fighting to force the arms the rest of the way down, “Stop it! I’m doing this to save your ass!”

“I know,” shouted Joey, feeling Frank’s overpowering strength and realizing he was going to lose, but trying, because he was thinking about the way Jeff had said the pain killed them, and the way he’d promised not to let him die, and said he thought he was smart. _Fuck. Fuck I can’t,_ he thought desperately, _Not Jeff. It’s not right._ “I know,” he said again, arms starting to shake as they fought for dominance over them, “And you’re my best friend, and I trust you, and I’d do the same, but you’re not listening—it’s Jeff. Our Jeff! He tried to help me, Frank! Let him go!”

Jeff was staring up at him, horrified and in pain and afraid, and it made Joey keep trying, even though he could feel Frank beating him, getting the arms back. _Fuck—fuck, fuck, I’m going to lose. He’s going to kill him. I don’t know how to beat him._

“Listen. To. Me,” struggled out Frank, full concentration on the arms, “It’s us—or—them! Stop—stop—fighting! I’m—going—to protect us! If I have to—kill—everyone!”

“Frank, please,” begged Joey, feeling his arm throb every time the arm on the body was his for a second, the pain in his nose every time the face was Frank’s, “Not Jeff.”

“This—is for—you own—good,” said Frank, and Joey felt himself lose. Not over, but past salvaging, like the moment your arm was too close to the table in an arm-wrestling match for you to ever get it upright again. Only a matter of pride forcing throbbing muscles into keeping the act up a few seconds more, not any hope of success.

 _Fuck,_ thought Joey, looking at Jeff’s face, and aware of Quentin trying to crawl towards them, and Jane Romero bleeding, and knowing Frank was going to kill all of them, Jeff, then Kate, then either his favorite tv host or the guy too fucked up to fuck up much more no matter how hard you tried. _I can’t. I can’t stop him. I can’t beat him—he’s stronger than me. That’s why he didn’t lose. I break more easily or something. Frank’s too strong and tough and smart, but he’s not listening, and he’s going to kill them. That shouldn’t matter, but._

It was hard to understand but whatever he was feeling was overwhelming him, and Joey’s mind latched onto the pain in his nose as Frank’s face became the one on the body they were fighting over. _I can’t beat him, but I can beat me,_ thought Joey suddenly, and he let go of everything but the broken arm.

Not expecting his, Frank stumbled forward, jabbing the knife into Jeff, but not as deep as he’d been intending to, and as Jeff cried out, the right arm on the body became Joey’s again, broken and awful and mangled beyond easy repair, and with every ounce of strength he had left Joey flung his arm with all his might.

The pain was indescribable. It was so much, Joey thought he might pass out, and he felt it hit Frank too. Frank screamed and fell onto his side, clutching the broken arm and writhing. Joey screamed too, and their voices overlapped in the swamp, pain and agony and fury, until the pain subsided.

Breathing hard, Frank fought to his knees, using a crate, and as he made it to his knees he saw Kate struggling back onto hers as well, somehow not dead yet, and Jeff pulling the knife that had stayed in his chest out with trembling hands, looking weak, but alive. Frank lunged for him immediately, and Joey threw his arm out again, and Frank screamed and crumpled again, forcing himself up onto his hands and knees faster this time as both of them struggled through the pain inside the body.

“The fuck are you doing!” shouted Frank, “Are you trying to get us both killed!”

“You won’t listen!” shouted Joey back, “I said don’t kill him!”

“It’s kill or be killed!” snapped back Frank, dragging himself to his feet and taking a shaky step towards Jeff again, “Do you want to die?!”

“I don’t want to kill Jeff!” said Joey, because that question was complicated and he didn’t have an answer to it, but he couldn’t kill Jeff. Not right now. At least once, he had to let him go, or it would never be okay.

The others watched as the crackling body with a shifting face and two voices struggled towards Jeff. Kate was trying to get to him too, dragging herself along boxes, but Frank was closer.

Focusing as hard as he could, Joey let Frank win the struggle to get the broken arm back, and put his full concentration into the feet. Into stopping them. Their body toppled forward as its feet became like blocks of cement, and Frank landed on his chest with an angry scream.

“Joey, stop! They’ll kill us! They were going to kill you! They’ll kill me!” he shouted, “We’re the Legion, aren’t we? We look out for each other and fight for each other, and fuck anyone else?!”

 _We are,_ thought Joey, feeling horrible and guilty and looking at the bone in Jane Romero’s arm, and knowing that Jeff was looking at him like he might really still be a friend because he believed that, and already feeling horrible because whatever this was was a one-time thing, because he wasn’t strong enough to die just to not have to hurt people. _And I enjoy it,_ thought Joey, thoughts racing, _I enjoy it, but not this time. Fuck—fuck. I’m sorry Frank, I don’t know what’s wrong with me._

“I know,” said Joey miserably, “I know, you’re right—but not Jeff, not this time. Frank, please.”

“Why?” shouted Frank, slowly forcing the body forward against Joey’s will. Joey threw all his weight to the right and made them stumble and pitch before Frank righted them again. Slowing them down. “What the fuck has happened to you and Susie? For this—for them?!” he asked furiously, “What happened to us? I’m doing this for you!”

Joey could feel the anger explode in him then. Anger, and hurt. Overwhelmingly flooding them both as it became too much for Frank.

“I could end up dead! I could get fucked by the Entity!” he shouted at Joey, forgetting the other people for a second, “Do you have any idea how much I’m doing?! For you?! And you’re going to fuck me over—for them?!”

“No,” said Joey, feeling the words cut deep, “No—I’m sorry! I don’t know. I.” He was confused. It was so much. _Shit—shit he’s right; I’m betraying my best friend. I can’t do that. But—but. I._

“Joey.”

The voice was unsteady and afraid, but he knew it immediately anyway. He’d seen her show regularly, when he could. Joey and Frank turned the body’s head and looked as one at Jane Romero.

“Listen to me,” she said, voice calming and a hand out as she moved between them and Jeff, “You don’t want to do this.”

“Lady,” said Frank through gritted teeth, “Trust me when I say you’re gonna want to stop whatever you’re saying right now and get the fuck out of my way.”

“I’m talking to Joey,” said Jane calmly, voice not accusing or mad, but firm. “Joey,” she continued, maintaining eye contact with the body, “I don’t know much about you, or this place. But I know you don’t want to hurt these people. I know that you’ve done bad things to them before, and maybe you even liked it. You’re confused, and you’re hurt, and there are threats to you too, but no matter what you did in the past, you don’t want to hurt them anymore. And that’s just as true as anything else about you.”

Frank shifted, angry, and took a step towards her, eyes cutting over to Kate for a second as Joey sensed him debating which girl to deal with first.

“People change all the time,” said Jane, “Every day of our lives we change a little bit, and some days we change a lot. That doesn’t make it not true. You could wake up tomorrow and never do anything like you used to ever again a day in your life, and the new person you became would still be you—and real. I know you’re confused, but you don’t have to hurt them just because you’ve hurt them before. You don’t have to do anything. You are free to do whatever you want. We all are. Even if it’s against what you wanted in the past. Please. You said you don’t want to hurt Jeff. Don’t. That’s real, and it’s a good thing.” Her voice was warm, and pleading, and assured. Understanding. One he used to know so well, and she was looking at him like Jeff was, like a friend, and Joey didn’t know what to do. “It means you’re a good person, deep down,” said Jane, “You want to be. You can be one.”

“Shut the fuck up,” snapped Frank, ignoring Kate now to whirl on her. “You think you know shit? Who the _fuck_ do you think you are telling him what he’s like?! That’s just what _you_ want him to do, because you’re too fucking weak to save your own skin! You’re trying to manipulate him—but he’s not stupid. He won’t fucking fall for that shit!”

Joey wasn’t thinking about that though. Not about anything Frank was saying, or even much of what Jane had just said. He was remembering something she’d said a long time ago instead. He’d been at home on a Saturday, before he’d met Frank, eating lunch and watching. Something he used to do a lot. She’d been smart and funny and pushy and strong, and he’d really liked that—he’d liked that she always disagreed when she thought someone was wrong, no matter who they were, and she wasn’t afraid of anything. He believed her when she said she knew how things were, because she told stories to back it up. Ones that made sense to him.

 _“The bottom line is, we all have a responsibility,”_ said the Jane on the screen in his memory, _“To other people. We don’t live in this world alone—existence isn’t a void. You don’t just owe other people because they help you, or because you hurt them and now there’s a debt, we all owe each other things simply because we exist together.”_

 _“What do you mean, ‘owe’ eachother?”_ the man on the show with her that day had asked. Joey couldn’t remember who he was anymore, but he hadn’t liked him. Some rich politician maybe? Or a businessman? A news anchor? It hadn’t really mattered. The guy had spent the whole show trying to get Jane to fuck up and say something he could talk down to her about, and Joey hadn’t cared who he was or what he said.

 _“It’s like this,”_ Jane had said, completely unphased, _“In life, some people have advantages just because of how they’re born, and some have disadvantages. There are always going to be people out there who will be judged and hurt and treated differently just because of their background, or their social class, their culture, their race, their sex, their lifestyle. And that’s barely scratching the surface. It seems to me a lot of the time people like you, obviously no personal offense meant,”_ she’d added, but there definitely had been, which had made Joey like her more, _“Don’t like the idea that humans owe each other help. A lot of the time people like you say they feel targeted by that idea, because you’re rich and secure, and that means you get asked often why you do things, and why you don’t do them. But what you feel is targeting is really something entirely different. You might see the world from a comfortable position where everyone is entirely responsible for their own welfare, and that’s fair, but the reality of what’s happening is that you’re sitting on a pile of life preserves watching someone drown in the bay beside you while a man in a wheelchair and a pregnant woman ask you why you aren’t helping. And you hear them and you say ‘Why is that my responsibility? He should just swim out. Why don’t you go help him?’ and never realize how wrong you are. Why don’t they? Well, the answer is, they’re probably going to try even if they can’t possibly do it, but it’s your responsibility, and that’s because you can help with little to no cost to yourself, and someone ought to. We owe each other.”_

Joey had liked that, because the metaphor made sense and was clear, and she was right. His family was poor, and when their neighbor’s place had caught fire, it had been his family and the Colesons down at the end of the lane who’d helped them put up some new walls—not the people from their church who lived in the nicer neighborhoods closer to town. They’d brought casseroles and said how sorry they were and that they were in people’s thoughts and prayers, but that had been it. Even though they had more time, and more cash for that sort of thing, they hadn’t been the people who went over and got their hands dirty. They didn’t get what it was like not being able to stay in a hotel a couple weeks while you paid someone to undo what happened to your walls.

Joey had liked what Jane said, but the man on the tv had laughed and said something like _“That’s a colorful bit of preaching, but it doesn’t really mean anything.”_

 _“But it does,”_ Jane had said. Joey had been pissed at the man, but she’d just smiled at him like she didn’t give a single shit. _“Whether or not you or I want to admit it, if you see someone in real trouble and you have the power to help them, you should. Sometimes someone like me, who’s from a cultural minority and a broken home, ends up lucky enough to have that power. And even though it shouldn’t be the way the world is, most of the time people who help each other aren’t the ones with the most ability—it’s people who have known what it’s like to suffer themselves.”_

The man had started to say something then, and Jane had cut him off.

 _“You can argue ethics, and moral relativism all you want with me—believe me, I’ve read Socrates and Averroes to Nietzsche and Kant. But the fact of the matter is,”_ she’d said with a very secure smile on her face and look in her eyes like an attack dog ready to go for the throat, _“This isn’t about theoretical ethics and defining ‘truths’ in a philosophical stance. It’s about what’s right. And anyone worth a damn knows that. Arguing ethics is just a way to get past responsibility, and only people who are born safe enough their existence isn’t threatened by treating right and wrong like a thought exercise do it. Even if humans did just make up the idea of ethics, people matter, and you know it. We all know it. And because we matter, as individuals, we all matter, which means we owe each other some basic attempt to do what’s right. Everything else. It’s just ways of trying to act like you have a smart reason for being a piece of shit.”_

The network had bleeped out “shit,” but he’d known she’d said it, and the guy’s face had turned red and livid while he choked out some half-baked response about ethics. Joey had remembered that episode for a long time, and then forgotten it little by little during the last two years, until now. Looking at her, hearing her voice.

 _I think I might be a bad person,_ thought Joey with a sinking feeling. “Frank,” he said nervously, “She’s right. Susie’s right.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” hissed Frank angrily, “They hurt you—they were going to drag you off just minutes ago! You want to just let them go—you want to die?”

“No,” said Joey, scared of the thought, “No, but maybe just this once?”

“Why?” asked Frank, “Because they fucked you up especially badly and that made you like them?”

_Shit. Shit—I don’t want to die. Even if that means I have to keep doing this. But I don’t want to kill Jeff either, or Jane Romero, or that dude who looks like he’s already 90% of the way to dead, or even really Kate because she’s so fucking hot._

“No,” said Frank, much louder, advancing on Jane again, “You reward people for this kind of shit, and they’ll just do it again. They have to be taught a lesson. No fucking with us, or you pay a real, real steep price!”

“Joey,” said Jane again, taking a step back but staying between them and Jeff, “You don’t want to do this. You don’t have to.”

“Don’t _fucking_ tell him what he wants!” shouted Frank, he reeled back a fist and punched her in the face, and Joey didn’t stop him. He stayed inside, frozen, watching Jane stumble back with a bruise forming at her cheekbone. “I don’t give one shit what happened here today!” he shouted, and Joey could feel the emotions Frank was feeling. Confusion, and anger, and hatred, and viciously protective, and there was concern for him, and a violent longing deep inside, ready lash out, and also hurt—he was hurt that Joey was doing this, and not listening.

 _He feels like I’m betraying him,_ thought Joey, feeling awful, _I wouldn’t ever do that; you’re my best friend—it’s just. I don’t know. I’m not like me today. And Jane, and Jeff, and…and people…what do I owe…Do I? It’s. It’s hard._

“I’m going to get this taken care of, and back to normal, and you all to stop _fucking_ with my crew, if I have to skin everyone here and tear out their bones to beat some sense back into you with!” Frank continued to them, and then to Joey. “This ends! You are all going to learn the hard way, no matter how much fucking time it takes me, starting with you!” He lunged forward and grabbed Jane’s collar and shoved her backwards onto the floor of the building, hard, then moved past her to where Jeff was still on the ground, snatching at the hand with the knife and ripping it free after a half-second of weak struggling and a little defensive slice on Frank’s forearm.

 _I should do something,_ thought Joey, torn, _Frank’s just trying to help. But. But. He…he knows what he’s talking about, though. I should let him do what he’s got to. I fucked up and he’s bailing me out—he knows how to fix it. What to do. He always does. That’s why he’s the leader. He looks out for the rest of us, and he’s smart, and tough. But Jane. And Jeff—I shouldn’t…I…_

“Now,” said Frank, turning from Jeff to where Jane had fallen, wiping the bloody knife on his sleeve, “I’ve had about enough of your fucking brave little showdowns. You all are going to go back to running like scared little rabbits, or I’m going to start giving you real good reasons until you do. Let me see if I can get the point across!”

Jane started to crawl back on her elbows, still oozing blood form her stab wounds as Frank advanced, dead-set on dealing some punishment. Joey could feel an undercurrent of desperation behind the anger and viciousness coursing through him.

 _Shit. What should I?_ Joey sensed Kate move behind them, and soon as he did, Frank did too, and turned to look, catching her lunge at him fast enough to react, and turning the knife in his hand and locking his elbow, ready to plunge it into her gut on contact.

_Fuck._

Joey let go of the knife, and it clattered to the wood floor, and he felt the shock and betrayal in Frank as Kate rammed into them and sent them flying backwards into the old wooden wall.  It hurt, Frank’s head impacting the wall and aggravating the damage Kate had done to him earlier, knocking him around, and as they struggled to make it to their feet, they saw Kate grab the knife, and he felt Frank panic and then he did too.

_Shit—shit what did I do—what am I thinking—she’ll kill us both. Fuck—fuck even—even with Frank. I hurt him. I might get him killed! Why did I do that? How could I do that? He’s my best friend! He’s risking his life to protect me! What the fuck is wrong with me!_

Joey collapsed in on himself, leaving Frank totally in control, dripping gold fire crackles as his body tried to firmly become his again, oozing malice and hate and violence and desperation, and seeing Kate with the knife he shot up and left and grabbed Quentin from off the ground and pulled him between Kate and himself, arm around his throat as Quentin struggled weakly, bleeding badly form the stab wound in his side.

“Checkmate!” shouted Frank, and Joey could still feel the fear and desperation underneath the anger and bravado and pride, “Drop the fucking knife or I’ll snap his neck!”

Kate leveled the knife at him, breathing hard, eyes darting between Quentin and Frank.

“I’m not fucking around!” said Frank, squeezing hard and jerking Quentin closer to himself, “You got five seconds!”

“Wait,” choked out Quentin.

Frank ignored him. “Four!”

“You fucking touch him and I’ll kill you!” shouted Kate, stepping closer, “Don’t think I can’t! I’ll kill you for real, and the rest of your group the next time I see one of you! Let him go!”

“Three!” shouted back Frank. Joey could feel the fear and guilt overwhelmed him. _I did this. Frank, Frank I’m sorry. I’m sorry—I wasn’t thinking. I don’t know why—I’m sorry._

“Listen,” said Quentin, hands struggling weakly at the arm around him and voice barely audible through Frank’s grip on his throat, “I can help you. You want everything to go back to normal—we can make a deal. Everyone can get what they want.”

“I don’t fucking _make_ deals with you,” said Frank, jerking him by the throat to try and shut him up. He let out a choked, pained sound, and Joey could see him bleeding. “Three!”

“You’re dead,” said Kate, face furious and anguished at the same time, “I give up and you’ll kill him anyway—kill all of us. I don’t and you snap his neck and I gut you for good. You let him go, and we can talk.”

“Two!” shouted Frank.

“Joey’s arm is broken,” choked out Quentin weakly, “What happens next trial he’s in? Your face is still burned from Meg—his arm’s gonna stay broken. You can’t set bones—I can.”

Frank hesitated. Joey could feel his confliction. Furious, and guarded, and ready to snap, but also desperate.

“Talk,” said Frank, making it just a little bit easier for him to breathe, but still pinning him against himself as a bodyshield, “I’m listening, but it better be good.”

“You want things to go back to how they were before,” said Quentin, trying to tilt his head so he could look up at him, “Okay. We can do that. Jane and Jeff are new—we want to take them back to the fire with us. You let us go, this one time, and I’ll set Joey’s arm. After this trial, everything’ll be back to how it was before. We all get what we want.”

“No way,” said Frank, glaring at him, “I let you shits have an inch and you’ll never stop it with this. We don’t let you all go, and I don’t barter. We’re not equal.”

“Can you set a bone?” asked Quentin, “Can Joey, or Susie? I can. If you don’t do it right, it’s never gonna heal. I don’t know you, but you care about your team. If this doesn’t get handled, he’s fucked. I know you don’t want that.”

Joey knew it too. He could feel it as soon as Quentin said that. Frank’s pulse sped up and Joey could feel the doubt and worry and desperation fighting against pride and anger.

“Okay,” said Frank, “But how about this instead. You set the bone, or I break every bone in your little blonde friend’s body, one by one until you change your mind.”

“No. If I do it for nothing because you threaten me, you’ll just kill us anyway,” said Quentin, “At least I’d have the satisfaction of knowing one of you wouldn’t be able to hurt my friends again.”

“You sure about that,” asked Frank, “Awful lot bones to break going slow. And you got three friends here. How much of that do you really think you can take before you give in.”

Quentin gave him a look. Maybe hatred, if hatred could be tired and hurt and full of loathing all at the same time. “Okay,” he said more quietly after a second, looking down, “You win. I get it. Look—Jeff and Jane can’t go back without either Kate or me. I’ll trade you, the arm for letting them go. And you can kill me or hook me. I’ll just give up. As payment, since you won. Is that enough?”

“No!” said Kate angry and looking like she might cry. “Fuck that! I can beat him.”

“I know,” said Quentin, smiling at her, “But can you do it before he kills Jeff, or Jane? They’re pretty fucked up. We’ve got a real chance to get them back with us this time, and Jeff’s been stuck out here alone long enough.”

“That’ll do it,” said Frank, who had been on the fence until he’d seen how much Kate _didn’t_ like the deal. Joey could sense relief starting to course through the body.

Kate shook her head at Quentin, hand still around the knife. “It’s not fair. No,” she looked over at Jane and Jeff. Jeff was breathing, but his eyes were shut. Jane was sitting on the deck, watching them in horror, clutching the arm Frank had cut to the bone. “Okay,” said Kate, turning back to them and closing her eyes for a second, “Then I’ll do it,” she said, meeting Frank’s eyes. “That’s even better—right? Since I broke your friend’s arm.”

“No,” said Quentin, “I won’t do it if it’s her.”

“Quentin,” said Kate, ready to argue.

“—It’s okay for me,” said Quentin, trying not to give her the chance, “You’d hate this. I know how much. It’s not the same with me—”

“—I’m not just gonna let you die like that!” cut in Kate, “You’ve been through enough.”

“ _I’ve_ been through enough?” said Quentin, sounding desperate, “You think I don’t know how bad what happened to you and David and Jeff was? Because of me! It’s hard to even look at you guys,” he said, voice like it might break, “I’ve—I’ve caused so much suffering for the rest of you, just by being here, and fucking up. Please—Kate—I’m not like you and David—I can’t fight that well, and while I’m like this I can’t do anything. I am _never_ going to get another chance to do this, because killers don’t listen to us. I’m never able to help you guys, or protect you,” he said desperately, “but I can do this. If I am ever going to be able to forgive myself even a little for all the fucked up shit I’ve put you through, I need to have been able to do something good, even just one time. And I—” His expression crumpled suddenly and he stopped talking, “I’m not, am I,” he said after a second, sounding hopeless, any tension or fight he’d had against Frank’s hold on him disappearing as he gave up, “You’ll feel better if I let you protect me. I can’t make it better. If I let you do it for me, I’ve fucked it up and let someone hurt you again. If I do it, I’m just hurting you and helping myself.”

“Quentin,” said Kate quietly, looking heartbroken.

Joey had no idea what they were talking about, and he could tell Frank didn’t either, but it was pretty interesting, and he could tell Frank was listening too.

“I don’t give a shit,” said Frank, cutting in, “Flip a coin when the time comes. But if we’re doing this, I want his arm fixed now.”

Kate looked at him and then Quentin and nodded.

“Okay,” said Quentin.

“Okay,” said Frank, looking at Kate, “You can make sure ‘Jeff’ doesn’t die, and then go fix generators. Leave the knife on the box by the ramp when you go. Quentin stays here while you guys work, as collateral, and fixes Joey. Same time—otherwise you’ll just try to fix shit and run without setting the arm. And if you try to get wise and fuck up his arm on purpose,” he added to Quentin, leaning over threateningly, “We are all going to hunt you down in every trial you have with us, and make you sorry. Got it?”

“I got it,” said Quentin.

Reluctantly, the others did what he said.

Joey felt massively relieved, watching Kate bandage Jeff carefully while sending worried looks towards Quentin and the body that was Frank’s right now every few seconds where they stood off to the side, Frank still with a death-grip around Quentin’s throat.

“Can I go help?” asked Quentin, looking up at Frank, “I won’t try anything. I can’t really run even if I wanted to. But you stabbed me pretty deep in the side and I’m going to bleed out if I don’t do something. Jane and Kate and Jeff all need medical attention, and if you let me help them, it’ll go faster.”

Frank eyed him and considered that. “Hey blondie,” said Frank.

Kate shot him a look full of loathing.

“Your buddy can help you patch people up, but knife first. Kick it over here,” he said.

Kate looked at Quentin. He nodded. She hesitated, eyeing the blade, and her fingers tightened around it, and for one second Joey was absolutely certain she was going to decide _fuck the whole plan_ and just come at them like a bolt of lightning, damn the consequences, but she didn’t. She released her grip on the metal, closed her eyes and let out a sigh, then kicked over the knife. She gave Frank one last look of absolute hatred and went back to Jeff.

 _I know I shouldn’t be thinking this and she hates me,_ thought Joey, _But man that was so fucking hot. She’s like Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, or fuckin’ Sarah Connor. I wonder if she really could beat Frank. I mean, I don’t want her to, but fuck, man._

Frank picked up the knife, and let go of Quentin. He started to walk, and Frank caught him by the shoulder and turned him back towards him, knife raised. “Don’t try any shit.”

“I won’t,” said Quentin tiredly, “Thanks for letting me help them.”

Frank and Joey watched then for a minute as Quentin bandaged up Jane Romero’s arm and talked to her in low tones, and Kate sewed up Jeff and eventually managed to wake him. All four of them kept casting Frank and Joey looks, and they knew they were being talked about, but Frank didn’t seem too interested in trying to overhear. He just kept a watchful eye on them, fingers absently spinning the knife.

 _“I’m sorry,”_ said Joey from inside, control relinquished for now entirely. _“I shouldn’t have done that to you.”_

“Yeah,” muttered Frank. He didn’t seem that angry though—more distracted than anything. “You shouldn’t. What the fuck happened?”

 _“I was remembering something Jane Romero said,”_ answered Joey.

“I can’t believe she’s actually here,” whispered Frank.

 _“I know,”_ said Joey, _“I don’t really want to hurt Jane Romero.”_

“Yeah,” answered Frank noncommittally, glancing at her. “What did she say,” he asked after a second, “That you remembered?”

 _“Uh,”_ said Joey, trying to buy himself a second to think of something super vague or a good lie, not wanting to tell the truth because it was stupid and embarrassing. _“Just something about looking out for other people.”_

“That made you want to fuck me over?” asked Frank quietly.

 _“No,”_ said Joey, feeling guilty again, _“It was, like, about owing it to everyone to look out for them when they were in trouble. Or couldn’t protect themselves. Not just your friends. I don’t know,”_ he hurried to add, feeling embarrassed, _“It’s stupid.”_

“Yeah, sounds like some pansy-ass shit,” agreed Frank.

 _Well that’s not true. It was hardcore,_ thought Joey, remembering the interview. _It’s the not doing anything that’s pansy-ass. But I can’t explain that so well. And besides, this isn’t the same._

“What?” asked Frank.

 _“What do you mean, ‘what’?”_ said Joey.

“We’re sharing the body a little,” said Frank, “I can feel you disagreeing with me.”

_Oh. Fuck. Uh._

_“It was just a good interview,”_ said Joey, _“And…I think Jane Romero’s cool. And it was kinda tough she wanted to look out for people when shit was already rough for her.”_

Frank shrugged, then straightened up as he noticed Quentin starting to walk over.

“Can I have a second to go find a medkit? I basically always score one if I can find a trunk to dig through,” he asked, “I’d come back. I give you my word. But, you can follow me if you don’t trust me.”

Narrowing his eyes, Frank gave Quentin a hard look.

“I’m not trying to fight you,” said Quentin, “It’s just going to be a lot easier to fix the arm with some kind of decent supplies. I didn’t have a whole lot on me.”

Past then, Kate was helping Jeff up, Jane on his other side, and they were moving towards one of the ramps off the building. Kate looked over at Quentin and he smiled at her, and Frank watched that carefully, but to Joey the exchange looked tired and normal, not suspicious.

“I’m following,” said Frank, shoving Quentin in front of him, “There’s always a box down somewhere in the bottom of this building, right? Make it fast.”

Quentin went, limping and using the wall to help himself go. Frank followed behind, knife ready, but the guy didn’t do anything. He found a box pretty quick, and after a little digging, came up with first aid kit, like he’s said.

“We should go back up,” said Quentin, turning back to Frank, “Better light, and I might need to grab some wood to splint it with anyway.”

Frank motioned him to go in front, and Quentin did. It only took a few seconds to reach the open second floor again.

“Alright,” said Quentin, kneeling, “Just lie down, and do whatever it was you were doing earlier—so I can actually see his arm.”

“Lie down?” asked Frank, looking deeply suspicious.

“Yeah,” said Quentin, “Look—I have to set the arm. That’s what you do with breaks. I can’t do it with you standing up. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Fine,” muttered Frank, sitting and then laying down, looking and feeling deeply uncomfortable and on edge, really ready to stab at the first sign it might be necessary. “Alright,” said Frank, watching Quentin as he opened the medical kit and started to select supplies, “You’re up, Joey.”

Frank gave over control of most of the body, lingering only really in the left arm, full-on ready to use the knife just in case. Joey slipped back into control of everything else. He had not missed it. The second he was back in the pilot seat, he could feel the arm again, and it was way fucking worse after he’d fucked it up on purpose himself a few times.

 _God, why did I do that,_ he thought miserably. Joey turned his head to watch nervously as Quentin set things down beside him. _This sucks. I do not like depending on him to fix this. He probably wants to break it more._ Even though all these people were sort of Frank’s hostages at this point, lying on the ground on his back with a broken arm again, depending on someone who hated him for medical care, it felt a lot like being at someone else’s mercy, and Joey had already had quite enough of that for one day. It did not feel good.

“Okay,” said Quentin, “Let me find a chunk of wood or something to splint with. Just stay there.”

“Hey,” said Frank’s voice from the body, hostile and tense as Quentin stood up.

“Look, I’m not going far,” said Quentin, putting his hands up, “My leg’s fucked and I can’t run. I’ll stay in sight.”

Even though most of the body was his right now, Joey could still feel the suspicion coming from Frank, but he let him go. It occurred to him Frank could probably feel his suspicion too, and his fear.

They turned the body’s head as one and watched him, Frank still mostly letting Joey do whatever he wanted without a fight. True to his word, Quentin didn’t go far. He found the chunk of wall Frank had thrown him into earlier and, with a little bit of work, broke a sizable chunk free, and then broke that in half and brought the halves back over to Joey and knelt down again.

“Okay,” said Quentin, holding up one of the pieces, “This one should work. I don’t have plaster so you’re going to have to do this the old way, instead of a cast. There’s swelling, and I can see where she broke it, but the bone’s not exposed. I’m gonna need to feel the break with my hands to know how to set it, and that’s gonna to hurt, and I don’t have anything to give you. Do you need something to bite down on?”

“Uh,” said Joey, swallowing nervously, “Yeah.”

Quentin broke off a little piece of the plank chunk he wasn’t using and handed it to him. Frank’s arm took it and put it in place for him.

“Lay your arm down on the plank. I’m going to line up the bone, and then secure it to the wood and wrap it so it doesn’t slide free again,” said Quentin.

Joey did what he said, trying to breathe even as Quentin helped him adjust the broken arm against the board.

“Alright. It’ll probably take a minute for me to get it done, because I want to make sure I set it right and I’m gonna have to go by touch. I’ll try to be gentle, but it’s gonna hurt,” said Quentin, poising his hands over the break, “Please don’t stab me on reflex.”

It hurt. It hurt a fuck ton. The fingers were like little shards of ice digging into him, and Joey choked on the urge to scream, fighting to take the pain well and not to jerk. It was hard. It was sort of like Jeff had said, your body unable not to move because it hurt so much. No control over what you were doing. He struggled not to scream. _Fuck, fuck, fuck._ He could sense Frank with him, and past him, further, Susie and Julie. _I’m not alone. Come on. Don’t move. Don’t fuck up your arm worse._

“Okay,” said Quentin, hands stilling moving along his arm, “I can feel where this needs to be. I’m gonna set it. It might feel weird to you, like your arm got too tight, or like something’s kind of grinding. Don’t freak out. That’s normal. It’s also going to hurt and might take a few tries to get all the way right, but after that, the worst part’s over.”

Leaning over him, Quentin adjusted his hold and started to move the two parts of the arm and Joey felt sick. There was a tight pressure along his arm he was afraid the bone was going to break again, somewhere new, or pop out and hurt him more, and Quentin kept tugging and twisting things just a little, and Joey could very clearly see the mental image in his head of what was going on under his skin even though he wasn’t looking at the arm at all. Like lining up pieces of a snapped skateboard and trying to tape them, jagged chunks of wood needing to go above or below and line up exactly right, and that thought was not making him feel better about the tugging in his arm at all.

“Okay, you’re doing good,” said Quentin, voice calming, “I’ve almost got it. Just stay still.”

Joey tried, but it hurt so much, and he wanted to tear away from him and the pain and hold the arm himself, but that wasn’t going to fix it. _You almost got it,_ said Frank’s voice in his head, and that helped, because he knew Frank was feeling the pain in the arm too. _Frank can make it; I can make it._

He closed his eyes and tried to breathe and to not scream, repeating that over and over in his head, and then suddenly Quentin drew back his hands and stopped touching the break, and the relief that came from the lessening of the pain was immense.

“Did you get it?” asked Joey as best he could through the piece of plank in his mouth, opening his eyes. _Please say yes._

“Yeah,” said Quentin. “But hold still. I need to tie your arm to the splint so it stays that way.”

Joey did, watching Quentin as he tied the thin board down against the bone in his upper arm.

“I should have taped this first, but I didn’t think of that,” said Quentin ruefully, eyeing the top of the board, “Just keep holding still.”

Quentin took some tape out of his medical kit, and a package of some kind that was firm but not ridged, and taped it carefully to he top of the board by Joey’s arm, up at the shoulder, making a sort of joint at the top, or a section that could fold over onto the shoulder itself.

“Okay,” said Quentin, glancing at him, “Now I can tie it.”

Joey spat out the piece of wood he’d been biting on and watched as Quentin wound a thick white bandage around the splint, close to his elbow, tying it down, and then moving up past the break in his upper arm, but still a couple inches below the shoulder, and tied it down around the arm there too. It hurt, but not much. Quentin was being careful, brow furrowed in concentration and eyes on what he was doing.

“Thanks,” said Joey, thinking about dragging him out of a locker earlier and all the bandages Quentin had on him and feeling sort of sorry.

Quentin glanced up at him, but didn’t say anything.

“For…fixing this,” said Joey, still not feeling right about everything.

“I’m not doing it for you,” answered Quentin after a second, using his teeth to carefully tighten a knot.  

 _But. Kate’s right. You don’t get much out of helping me here. Maybe some of you leave this time, but I’ll get healthy again. Leaving my arm fucked up would have been way smarter,_ thought Joey, not sure what to say. “You agreed to do all of it, though,” he said finally, “Even get killed, so I don’t get in trouble with the Entity. Instead of trying to…”

Quentin looked over at him again, expression hard to read. Joey couldn’t figure him out.

“Is it because we’re all Legion?” asked Joey, it occurring to him suddenly, “Because of Susie?” That would make sense. Wanting her to be fine, since she was all buddy-buddy with his friend.

“No,” said Quentin, carefully looping some of the bandage around the joint he’d made at the shoulder, “I need you to lean up a little so I can get this around your back. Careful of the arm.”

Joey did what he was told, and Quentin threaded the linen around his back and over his chest so it went from above the shoulder with the broken arm to under the shoulder opposite, across him, helping keep the arm in place. Quentin kept working, tying the new anchor point down.

 _I don’t get it,_ thought Joey, eyes on Quentin. Quentin glanced over and caught the look.

“I appreciate you’re talking to us like we’re people right now,” said Quentin, glancing from him to his slow work bandaging the arm intermittently, “And that you didn’t want to kill Jeff. But you’re still bad. I’m not trying to help you.”

He wasn’t angry when he said it, just very sure. Explaining. It made Joey feel weird to hear it—not mad himself either, or upset, just weird.

“You guys have killed me, and my friends,” said Quentin steadily, eyes on the bandages, “And I’m not just going to forget that. It’s not okay. Even if you were going to kill me slightly less painfully today, I’m not going to think you’re good for not doing something normal people wouldn’t even think about. And it would be enough on its own, but I don’t even care that much what you’ve done to me. But my friends? I love these people, and I’ve seen you do terrible shit to them.” He paused, and switched what he’d been using before for a roll of gauze, going over parts of the arm now along the splint, securing it gently. “I know Meg likes Susie, and I care about that because I care about Meg, but I haven’t forgiven Susie. She killed Laurie, and I saw it. She stabbed her in the side and the stomach and threw her kicking and fighting up on a hook and sacrificed her like it was nothing. Like a game. And I’m not forgetting that just because Meg likes her. It doesn’t mean that’s not something I could ever forgive, but I haven’t seen anything myself to make me think she’s sorry. I’m not just gonna forget what she did to someone I care about. And I shouldn’t.”

 _Yeah,_ thought Joey, because even if they were enemies the thought was fair. It made sense. Nobody was probably gonna forget Kate had broken his arm, and they’d all gone after that one guy for punching Julie. Joey was certain that if they’d actually managed to kill him today, Frank would have rained hell down in vengeance for him.

“Hold your arm still across your chest,” said Quentin, moving his forearm gently into place, “I’m going to put it in a sling. It’ll help keep the whole arm immobilized while you heal.”

Joey watched as he did, winding white fabric around his arm and neck, and then his elbow, going at a steady pace, but carefully. Barely hurting him at all.

 _I don’t get it,_ thought Joey, watching him, _You hate me, but you’re doing this nice. Like you don’t. Is it just because you’re scared of Frank? And if you’re that pissed about what we did to your friends, then you have to know Kate’s right. Way better for you guys long-term to just leave me fucked up and take the punishment._

Past them, the last generator went on out near the dock he’d found Quentin by when the trial started, and Joey looked towards it, then back at Quentin, pretty sure he shouldn’t actually say what he’d been thinking out loud, because he wanted his arm to get better, and Quentin could still change his mind and tear this shit off and try to break it again—maybe before Frank would have a chance to stop him, but wanting to say something. “Why’d you agree to this, then?” asked Joey, feeling like that was a safer thing to say. _If you don’t give a shit._

“Because,” said Quentin tiredly, looking up at him as he adjusted the sling, “When we show up here, we’re alone until we can escape a trial with someone else. And we don’t make it out a lot of the time. Jeff and Jane are both new here, and I want them to be able to come back with us and not be alone out here.”

Joey shifted uncomfortably. _That seems like not a lot to give up a fuck-ton of revenge for._

Looking over at him, Quentin read the expression. The suspicion and confusion. “That’s it,” said Quentin simply, “It’s the truth. I want to help them more than I want you hurt. I get that it doesn’t make sense to you, but it doesn’t have to, does it? You got what you wanted.”

 _I guess,_ thought Joey, feeling guilty. It hit him then that it was sort of the same decision Frank had just made, if you got down to it. He’d picked getting Joey’s arm fixed over carving up this group to teach them a lesson. Joey didn’t really like that.

“There,” said Quentin, letting out a breath and moving back a little, “That’ll be secure so long as you don’t put too much strain on it. Your arm should be fine after a while, but you need to take it easy on it so you don’t undo all my work. Wounds heal faster in this place though, if you’re anything like us—even outside trials. Maybe a couple weeks, but then you’ll be back to normal.”

“Cool,” said Frank, taking back control. Joey let him, feeling the flickers of firelight overwhelm and pass along his body as it changed shape and size and he was riding passenger again.

Pulling himself up quickly, Frank closed his hand around Quentin’s arm like a vice. Gates were up—he might try to flee.

“I’m not running,” said Quentin tiredly, looking at the hand on his arm.

Frank didn’t answer. He pulled Quentin along behind him and as he walked over to where the mask that had been Joey’s but was now his had fallen, and he picked it up and pulled it over his face. Quentin watched him, a tired sort of dread in his expression, but he didn’t fight. “Let’s go,” said Frank, pushing him along in front of him, “Make sure your friends all get gone before we finish it. You and blondie are flipping a coin, right?”

Quentin didn’t have a chance to answer, because Kate appeared at the top of the ramp as they were moving to go down it. The gash across her chest Joey had left earlier was bandaged now, as were the other punctures, on her leg and arm and such, but the cut on her face was unbandaged, and she still looked rough, glaring at Frank as she appeared.

“You set the arm?” she asked Quentin.

He nodded.

“Okay,” said Kate. “Jeff and Jane are opening that one.” She pointed to the closer exit, up on a hill to their left.

Frank nodded, hand still tight around Quentin’s arm, pushing him in front of him but making sure it wouldn’t be easy for him to break free. Insurance. The three of them walked up to the exit. It opened while they were still climbing the hill, and Frank came to a stop just inside the entrance, hold still tight on Quentin, knife ready.

Jeff and Jane had been talking, but they stopped as the others walked in, and turned to face them.

“Look,” said Jane, glancing from one to the other of the three who had just come, “I’ve never been in here before, and I’ve never had to die. It—it seems more fair for it to be me than him or you,” she said, looking from Kate to Quentin. Joey could hear the fear in her voice when she said it, but that just made him respect her more. He’d always liked Jane, because she did whatever she thought she should do even if she knew she would get in trouble. He felt weird when it hit him that he was the bad trouble she was going to be hurt by.

“No,” said Kate, “Y’all have to both walk out with one of us, or you’ll still be stuck out here alone.”

Jeff shrugged, giving Kate a tired smile. “I’ve been doing that for what—a month now? Wouldn’t be bad to keep it going another couple days. I can do it.”

“She’s right,” said Quentin, “You’ve done enough. Way more than you should have had to. –And you already took one for me today, Jane,” he added, looking at her, “It’s more important we all just go back together.”

Kate nodded. “No buts. We’re agreed.”

Jeff and Jane traded looks, uncertain.

“I agreed to him or her,” said Frank, motioning from Quentin to Kate with the knife, “Not you two. I don’t want you. I want one of them. You all try and back out of that, and I’ll see if I can’t get more than one.”

“Okay,” said Kate angrily, glaring at him, “You made your point.” She looked at Quentin, expression softer and tired. “You sure you want to flip a coin?”

He nodded.

Kate looked down at her jeans. “I don’t have one,” said Kate, “Do you?”

“Usually,” said Quentin, looking at the necklace he was wearing, only one of his two regular pendants ever since they’d started using the other as a key accessory, “But not right now.”

Frank watched them, head behind the mask turning slowly. “This gonna take long?”

“No,” said Kate, irritated, tone 180ing back to kind as she turned from him to Quentin again, “We could draw straws instead. That’s easy. Plenty of grass ‘n stuff.”

“Okay,” said Frank, fingers still wound tight around Quentin’s arm, “I’ll be the coin.” He moved fast, jerking Quentin back and in front of him again, one arm pinning him against him and the other holding the knife up to his throat. “I want him. Get out, or deal’s off and I’ll see how many of you I can get.”

“That’s not what you agreed to!” said Kate, starting to come towards him. He brought the knife against Quentin’s throat and drew a little blood, and Joey felt Quentin jerk at the cut and then try to hold perfectly still against them, heart beating fast.

“I told you,” said Frank, voice venomous and low, “I don’t negotiate. I said I’d take either of you. You took too long, so I’m taking one. I’m not bartering over the technicalities. Either take what you agreed to, or let’s have some real fun, yeah? He’s already kinda fucked, but I think I could find something new to cut up before you get over here and I slit his throat and gut you. Take the deal, and get gone.”

“It’s okay, Kate,” said Quentin, working hard to talk without moving and giving Frank a reason to cut him, “We did good. We got both of them back with us. I’ve died before, lots of times. Trust me, nothing is going to be really bad ever again after yesterday. Definitely not this.”

“Listen to him,” said Frank, voice dangerous and dark.

“Frank Morrison,” said Jeff, tone calm but firm, “You didn’t used to do this kind of thing. He can’t even fight back”

“I’m getting real sick of people telling me shit about myself,” said Frank, digging the knife in a little deeper. Joey felt Quentin twitch at the cut, barely breathing now as he tried not to make it worse.

“Please,” said Quentin, “Just go.”

“Every second you stay is more fun I’m gonna have before I finish him,” threatened Frank, voice rising in volume.

Kate looked desperate and torn. Joey could tell she wanted to fight, which is what he would have wanted to do too.

Frank kept Quentin pinned in front of him with one arm and raised the hand with the knife so it was in front of the other guy’s face now, by his eyes. He brought the knife dangerously close and Joey could feel Quentin's body shudder against them.

“Okay!” shouted Kate, voice breaking, “Okay—we’ll go—just promise not to hurt him! Our deal was you kill or sacrifice one of us, not torture somebody!”

Frank turned his head over towards her, knife still poised. “You follow orders, and that’s still the deal,” he agreed.

“I’m sorry,” said Kate to Quentin, looking broken.

He swallowed hard and nodded, smiling at her. “No, it’s okay. It’s what I wanted. Sorry for being selfish.”

“I’m gonna ask him, and if you hurt him,” said Kate, “I’m going to kill you next time I see you, fuck the consequences.”

“You sure that’s how you want to play this,” asked Frank, sliding the knife to the side along Quentin’s throat and making him wince, “You threaten me again, bitch, and I’m going to have some real fun.”

Eyes on Quentin’s face, Kate bit down on her lip, looking rough. She closed her eyes and turned then, taking Jeff’s hand in one of hers and Jane’s in the other. They looked from her to each other, and then back to and Frank and Quentin, unsure, hesitating. Joey thought Jeff was going to say something, but with one last look over her shoulder at her friend, Kate pulled the other two through the boundary with her, and they vanished, whatever it was left unsaid.

Joey could feel Quentin breathing shallow and fast against them as he watched the others disappear, and he felt bad for him. The guy had already been so fucked up this morning Joey hadn’t really wanted to hurt him worse, and now he’d set his arm and done everything they told him to without fighting, and he was still getting hurt more anyway.

Frank shifted as they vanished, and Joey could see Quentin trying to turn his head a little to look at Frank, maybe to see what he was going to do, but with the knife at his throat it was hard.

For a moment everything was still, and then Frank moved suddenly, letting go of his hold on Quentin's neck and moving from behind him to close his fist around Quentin’s jacket and jerk him around to face him, and just as fast he shoved him up against one of the little brick walls in the exit entryway, pinning him there with a forearm across his chest, brandishing the knife high, like he might cut up his face more, if that were possible. Quentin didn’t beg him not to do what he’d just promised Kate he wouldn’t; he just hung there, afraid and breathing fast, arms stiff at his side, eyes wide and fixed on Frank and the serrated blade that was already slick with his blood, but not fighting back. 

They stayed there for a second, close, knife up, and then Frank suddenly grabbed his shoulder and flung him violently to the side, onto the floor of the exit so that he was between Quentin and the way out.

Quentin hit the ground hard and stayed there, barely propping himself up on one elbow, half on his back, half on his side, breathing hard in the dirt and bleeding again now from the badly patched wound in his side and the cut on his neck and a handful of the older injuries all over him. There was no hold on him now, and Quentin had slim chances of making it past Frank to the exit at best, but he could have tried. He didn't though. Quentin stayed down, looking up at them in dread, waiting for Frank to come over and kill him. Afraid, and hurt, and very clearly fearing the pain and death he knew was coming, but not running, not trying to find a way out of it.

Frank stood over him for a second, flicking the knife in anticipation, and then he drew back and lowered the blade. Giving him a little room to breathe.

Quentin stared at him from the floor of the exit in confusion, still braced and afraid, and Frank tore off his mask and started to pace, spinning the knife around his fingers as he went, then after a second came to a stop and glanced at Quentin. He took a breath and motioned him past himself, towards the exit.

“What are you doing?” asked Quentin, still frozen on the ground. He hesitated a second, then started to pull himself up, shaky and slow, like he wasn’t sure standing was okay, watching Frank carefully for a sign he should stop, or in case he decided to attack him again. Frank didn't move, though, and once Quentin made it to his feet, he stood there, Frank and death between him and freedom, eyes darting from Frank to the exit and back.

Not really looking at him, Frank motioned Quentin past him again, still spinning the knife in his hand.

Unsure, Quentin stayed where he was, trying with a hand to hold back the blood coming from the stab wound in his side. "Are you...?" He stopped and looked from Frank to the exit again, confused and afraid to believe him,  “…You’re letting me go?"

“No,” said Frank, looking up and leveling the knife at him, “This is a trade. I’ve had a broken arm before. We aren’t gonna know when to take that thing off. I’m letting you walk this time. In exchange, any one of us grabs you and stops you during a trial and wants you to check the break for us, you do it, no questions asked, no special treatment expected after. It’s backpay, for me letting you go this time. Yeah?” he asked aggressively, stepping closer threateningly.

“Yeah,” agreed Quentin, backing up a step, eyes on the knife, “Okay.”

 _“Frank, don’t,”_ said Julie in his head, _“Joey’ll get in trouble if he doesn’t get any kills at all.”_

“He’s got a good track record. He’ll be fine catching no one once,” answered Frank out loud, “Besides, if the Entity pays enough attention to this one to want to punish us, it’s going to go after me. It’s not even gonna remember what Joey did next to that.”

“It prioritizes?” asked Quentin, knowing this time Frank wasn’t talking to him, but looking intent and for just a moment almost angry for some reason, but not at Frank, and then the moment was gone.

 _What’s that about?_ wondered Joey, _Is it not like that for them or something?_

“Yeah,” said Frank, a little annoyed Quentin had butted into the conversation. “Now get going,” he said, motioning towards the exit.

Cautious, Quentin took a couple of halting steps forward, pausing for a second when he came abreast of Frank and looking at him nervously, still afraid of the knife. Joey thought maybe wondering if it was a trick.

“Now,” snapped Frank, snatching at his jacket and shoving him back towards the exit hard enough to make him stumble, “Before I change my mind.”

He tried to catch himself and failed, bad leg giving out, then pulled himself back up unsteadily and did as he’d been told, backing up slowly towards the exit and watching them, still seeming unsure about if he was allowed to just make a break and run for the exit. Frank and Joey watched him go, Joey feeling the tension in Frank, and then Quentin reached the threshold. Joey would have bolted, but he stopped there and hesitated for a moment, looking back at them like he didn’t know how to feel. “Thank you,” he said after a second.

“It’s not charity,” answered Frank, “You do what you’re told. I can work with that. Go, now.”

Quentin nodded wordlessly and stepped through, giving them one last glance as he passed the barrier.

Frank watched him go, tension only easing out of his shoulders when the other guy had finally vanished. Around them, Joey felt the trial starting to end.

“How’s the arm?” asked Frank.

 _“Better,”_ answered Joey, _“I think he did a good job.”_

“Good,” said Frank.

 _“Why did you let him go?”_ asked Joey, _“We could have just made him check it anyway.”_

Frank didn’t answer. “Look,” he said finally, “It’s been a fucking long day, but it’s over now. You’ll be fine,” he added after a second, watching the ground start to vanish, “Like I said. If one of us gets in trouble, it’ll be me.”

 _“No, it’s not that,”_ answered Joey, thinking about Jane Romero. _“I thought it was tough.”_

“Tough?” scoffed Frank.

 _Yeah,_ thought Joey, not answering because he wasn’t sure how to.

“Whatever,” said Frank, watching their momentary view of a far-off campfire as the trial finally flickered out for good, “I’m tired. Let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although the Iron Maiden is a torture device most people think of as being medieval, like stocks, or a rack, it's actually far more recent, and has an unusual history. The earliest account of an Iron Maiden comes from an 18th century historian named Johann Philipp Siebenkees, about the torture and execution of a criminal back in 1515. However, while devices sort of similar have been written about off and on throughout much of history, there is no real evidence of an Iron Maiden itself having existed before then at all. It's possible he misinterpreted a story about something similar, like a Schandmantel (a punishment but not an execution device which looks somewhat similar to the modern idea of an Iron Maiden), or that he simply made it up. Weirdly, although this thing may never have organically existed on its own, people inspired by the grotesque account Siebenkees wrote created the thing for real in the 18th century--a nasty metal thing like a small closet, about human size, which impales people placed inside it on spikes attached to its doors and sometimes back. The spikes are aligned to cause massive pain and impale the eyes and injure organs, but without killing the person inside quickly, which results in a slow, painful death from damage and blood loss, usually hours, and potentially a day or two. As far as I have been able to find, it is unclear where the device got its name, and could be something as simple as the face above the device, or a crude joke, or as convoluted as rumors about the Spanish inquisition. None of that really has anything to do with the story, as it's more of a play on words here, but I was curious about the name and wasn't aware of most of that before, and thought it was interesting to learn. It's amazing that a story one man told likely brought into reality something as horrible as that, and made it something so well known people remember it right alongside things that were real.  
> Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is one of his most immediately recognizable pieces of music--even if you don't know it by name, if you listen to the first six seconds, odds are almost certain you'll recognize it. According to Jane's official bio, she was listening to some kind of classic music when she was lost to the world, and this piece seemed like a really fitting one for her, especially since she's a person who's struggling so much. While she's canonically basically fictional Oprah, which by default means she really has 'made it', as it were, and become a very successful and influential woman, she has a lot of self doubt and sounds like she probably suffers from impostor syndrome. Being a celebrity host and performing constantly would be rough enough, but being an aggressively opinionated one on live tv would be enough to exhaust anyone. While going to the Entity's realm is never good news for a survivor, it's a kind of bad unique to Jane that the manner of her disappearance would be a huge source of anxiety and doubt, potentially impacting her legacy forever in ways she couldn't know. It's very interesting and sad that often people like that, who have such a good impact on others, are the people who have it very rough themselves, and can't see all the good they do past doubting in themselves. Even though she's a strong and kind woman who's fought hard to give people a platform for things they otherwise would have no chance to speak on, she doesn't cut much of that kindness for herself. Those were all ideas I really wanted to explore here.
> 
> Although their bio isn't 100% specific, and I personally love both interpretations of Legion, either as four people tag-teaming who's up next, or four kids in one body, after reading up as much as I could, it sounded to me like it's probably four of them in one body. This makes sense for the Entity--turning a pack very literally into one unit. The Entity is also basically always cruel when it has the option, and sharing a body means that, while they're still together, they would no longer be able to do things like Susie and Julie doing each others' hair, or Julie and Frank being able to kiss, or share a hug. It also complicates any one of their abilities to act independently. With that being their situation, the idea of two of them breaking the rules and going at it at once as a last resort was one I really wanted to explore. It would make them hard to beat. If they were willing to make the sacrifice, then even if you could injure one badly enough to stop them, you'd have three more bodies to break before it was really over, and your odds of winning four stacked fights in a row, no breaks, are slim to none at best.
> 
> I know this was a long one and my schedule is still a bit weird, but here's part two! I hope you all enjoyed it! Thanks again so much for the feedback and support and to everyone who reads. Just let me say again how deeply appreciated every one of you is.


	43. Solidarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane and Jeff join the survivors. Feng has quite the day.

Feng Min stopped behind Meg as Nea and the two of them reached Claudette, who was working on a diagram in her journal, an intense look of concentration on her face and a pencil in her mouth.

“Hey, Claude,” said Meg, tapping her with her foot.

Claudette jumped and looked up. “Oh. Oh, hey—sorry,” she said, setting the book down and taking the pencil out of her mouth. She took in the three of them. “What’s, uh. You guys okay?”

“We want to know how Quentin is,” said Nea, glancing at the other two, who nodded affirmation. “Since he’s not here right now, we thought it was a good time to ask.”

“Oh, right,” said Claudette, standing up because they hadn’t sat down, and it was getting awkward looking up at three people peering down at her like she was about to get bullied out of her lunch money. “A lot better,” she said, straightening herself and stooping for a second to set down the journal. She looked cold and a little bit uncomfortable back in just her tanktop.

“When will he be all the way better?” asked Feng. “We asked Adam because you looked busy, and he said knife wounds can mostly heal in under a week and a half, but he didn’t check on him since last night, and it takes longer with worse stabs.”

“Well,” said Claudette very professionally, thinking through the question, “He seemed a lot better after resting. I haven’t actually checked all the injuries—just the two really bad ones. They’re healing well though. Nothing’s inflamed, and the bleeding’s completely stopped, so that’s all good. It doesn’t help that he can’t sleep, because your body does most of its healing when it’s asleep, but at least he rests, and wounds seem to heal about twice as fast here, outside trials—maybe more.”

“So, he could be back to 100% in like, the normal week and a half?” asked Meg, “Because like, double recovery time for being in the Entity’s realm, subtract half because he can’t sleep to heal?”

“I don’t think it’s exactly like that,” said Claudette, “He got really lucky and didn’t puncture any organs, but he got an arm muscle and one of his legs pretty decently torn up. I think those’ll take a little more time to heal. We’ve never had our fast healing time compounded by not being able to sleep, so I don’t really know what to tell you all. Since we don’t actually _have_ to sleep, maybe it doesn’t matter at all. We get tired, though, so I don’t know—maybe he’ll be slower than normal. All I can really tell you is he seemed a lot better this morning.”

They thought about that for a moment, slightly different expressions on every face. Feng looked a little bit disappointed, Nea like it was about what she’d expected, and Meg like she was trying to work through angles on a problem.

“Can we help? Like what we did with Dwight?” asked Nea, “Walking and stuff?”

“I don’t know,” said Claudette, a sort of suppressed happy radiation at them coming from her, like she was trying to hide how glad it made her they were asking.

 _He’s probably okay if she looks that happy,_ reasoned Feng, reassuring herself, _If she was worried he wouldn’t get better, she wouldn’t be excited about this._

“He can probably already walk fine on his own,” continued Claudette, still looking very pleased, “I just haven’t had time to do much, since he got pulled into a trial right when we got up this morning. Look, I’ll let everyone know as soon as he gets back and we find out, okay?”

“Sounds good,” said Meg, “Then I’m going to go pass out until they get back because I didn’t sleep at all last night. Wake me up when they get out?”

“Sure,” said Claudette.

“You’re the real MVP,” said Meg, finger-gunning at Claudette and winking as she backed up.

“Thanks,” said Nea, giving Claudette a nod and turning to go too, then pausing, “Oh—do we have any water left?”

“We have I think two cups,” answered Claudette, stooping to dig through some of her supplies, “I can get you some—hang on.”

“Nah,” said Nea, waving it off with a hand, “Nevermind. I’m good. Can I help you collect more?”

“Sure,” said Claudette, looking surprised and glad, “I’m going to try and harvest a little after the others get back, if you want to come with me.”

“Sweet,” said Nea, “You know where to find me.” She turned to go and then paused when she noticed Feng wasn’t following.

“I’ll be there in a sec,” said Feng.

Nea nodded and left, shooting a wink over her shoulder at Feng when she was sure Claudette wasn’t looking.

Claudette tilted her head and looked at Feng expectantly. “Was there something else?”

“Yeah, actually,” said Feng, feeling a little awkward and trying not to show it, “Can I, uh, get you to teach me how to make a cake?”

“A cake?” asked Claudette, completely taken aback. It was entirely out of left field, considering their former conversation topics.

“Yeah,” said Feng, putting her hands in her sweater jacket pockets, “I, uh—”

She was cut off as the sound of Meg’s voice yelling “Yo, Claude!” came in from behind them. Feng sensed an airborne projectile and ducked, and Meg’s jersey hit Claudette in the face, unfolding from the balled up, tight-packed package it had been in to be thrown as it impacted her and fell onto her chest, where she caught it, staring blankly at nothing with the face of someone who couldn’t understand how or why they’d just been attacked.

“You look cold,” called over Meg, now in the crop-top she wore under the jersey.

“ _You_ look cold,” protested Claudette, looking from the jersey up at her.

“Nah, I look _shredded,_ ” said Meg, gesturing to her toned abs, “And if you’ve got my shirt, no one can complain I’m showing them off.”

 _She is pretty shredded,_ thought Feng, taking in her physique appreciatively, _I’m not about to fuck anybody but Nea, but I wouldn’t mind watching her walk around like that._

“You’re weird, Meg,” said Claudette too quietly for anyone other than Feng, except possibly Meg with her disgustingly good hearing, to actually catch. She smiled at the jersey, then looked back up. “You sure you don’t need it right now?”

“Hell yeah, girl,” called back Meg from where she was lying against a log, ballcap pulled over her face, ready to snooze.

“I’ll give it back,” promised Claudette, tugging it on over her head. “Sorry,” she added, turning back to Feng, “You want to learn to make a cake?”

“Is it possible?” asked Feng, tone _shhh, bring it down,_ and casting nervous glances she hoped weren’t over-selling it in Nea’s direction. Nea was sitting across the fire, studiously sketching, back to them. _She’s killing it,_ thought Feng.

“Is this for Nea?” asked Claudette, following her gaze and speaking much more quietly.

“Yeah,” replied Feng, “Like, anniversary gift. We’ve been together a couple months now.

“Aw, that’s so cute,” said Claudette, looking extremely proud and happy for them, “How many months?”

 _Shit._ “Well, time’s—you know,” said Feng, trying to save it, “But we decided on our own date-keeping thing. So. Four. Four-month anniversary.”

“Wow, you all have been together that long?” asked Claudette quietly, radiating friendly goodwill, “It’s really sweet how you’re celebrating.”

“Is it doable?” asked Feng, wanting to get to the point, “A cake?”

“I don’t know,” answered Claudette thoughtfully, “Yeast is really hard to get out here, and I don’t have any chemical leavening agents at all. I’ve been trying to grow yeast colonies for a while now, so might be able to get enough yeast to make something that rises, but I’ve never tried before, so we’d really be experimenting. It’d probably take a lot of tries to get something that tastes good and does what it’s supposed to.”

 _Hmmm,_ thought Feng, _Might be hard to keep on the DL._

“I’m guessing we couldn’t be super sneaky doing that, huh?” asked Feng.

“Probably not. Maybe if we were lucky, and did it while she was in trials,” offered Claudette.

 _Damn it._ “Okay, what about something that doesn’t rise. Like a cookie cake?” said Feng.

“Well, usually those still rise a little,” said Claudette, “But we could try that for sure. Just like a sweet flatbread, I guess. And find some nice filling or something to use like icing on top. Is that okay?”

“What if we stack it,” said Feng, the idea suddenly occurring to her, “Like—you know how people do cakes with multiple layers and icing between them? But like, a bunch of layers of sweet flatbread cookie whatever, so that it’s still high and circly, like a cake?”

“Yeah!” said Claudette excitedly, “I think that would work great! I’ve gotten sap for syrup from the trees here before, and you could use that to help sweeten and stick stuff together.”

 _Nailed it,_ thought Feng proudly. “Okay, so, you can show me how to do that? And maybe help me get supplies? I want to do the actual one myself,” added Feng, looking over at Nea and smiling stupidly to sell the point, “You know,” she added, turning back, “So it’s really from me, and special. But if you could teach me how, I can pay you. In like, toolbox parts. I’ve got some really nice stuff I’ve been saving.”

Claudette smiled and shook her head. “I’d do it for free—I’m happy to help. It’s really cool you’re doing that.”

“You sure?” asked Feng, too proud to just accept charity without offering at least one more time to be polite.

“Well actually,” said Claudette, looking a little embarrassed suddenly, “I would trade you if you have a little time to spare to help me.”

 _Oh. Shit. I thought she’d say no again._ “Uh, with what?” asked Feng.

“You’ve been getting all the dance stuff pretty fast,” said Claudette awkwardly, sending a glance Jake’s way, “And I’m really slow at it. I’m sure I’m getting on his nerves by now, and I’d like to get better at it without making him waste more of his time. He’s already being nice to do it, and really patient with me. So, if you’d help me practice a little in secret?”

 _Oh. Hell yeah. That’s easy and kind of fun._ “No problem,” said Feng, “I gotcha.”

Smiling and looking quite relieved, Claudette held out a hand. “Thanks. It’s a deal.”

Feng shook it. “Cool. Maybe later today, when everyone isn’t around, or some of them are asleep, we can do the cake practice?” asked Feng.

“Sure,” answered Claudette.

Mission accomplished, Feng turned to go, and then she hesitated and turned back. “Hey.”

Halfway to sitting down again, Claudette straightened up and faced her. “Yes?”

“Is Quentin going to be able to…keep doing the dancing stuff?” asked Feng quietly. She hadn’t thought about that at all until just now, when she’d been thinking about helping Claudette practice. He’d been Claudette’s dance partner a lot of the time when Jake wasn’t.

“Oh,” said Claudette, a little less bright than before, “I don’t know. It’s good for him to be moving around to keep up his strength and stamina, and doesn’t lose muscle tone, but that might all be too hard on him, even after he starts really healing.”

“Oh,” said Feng. Feeling a little bad and not sure what else to say.

“I’m sure Meg won’t push him,” said Claudette, noticing the look on her face, “She won’t mind if he doesn’t do it.”

“No,” said Feng, trying to explain, “It was like. He was having a lot of fun doing it, I think. So it would kind of suck for him to just have to watch everybody else do it.”

“Is he?” asked Claudette, a little surprised, then thoughtful, “Well, I guess we kind of all were. Maybe—”

Feng didn’t get to find out what she’d been going to say, because at that moment, Kate returned, dragging two people with her, one of whom Feng recognized as the guy they’d been dodging the past few weeks, and the other an older woman Feng had never seen before in her life.

Meg screamed.

Immediately kicking in fight or flight reflexes, Feng spun to see why. She was staring at the woman holding Kate’s hand with big eyes.

“Jake. Catch me. I’m gonna pass out,” said Meg to Jake who was standing behind her. She teetered and then fell backwards rigid like a plank. Jake took a step to the side and let her slam into the ground while he watched, unmoved.

Trust falls with Jake would be almost universally a way you learned not to trust him.

 _What the hell?_ thought Feng, and not because of Meg. Meg was pretty big on letting people know when she thought they were hot, and Feng wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d done that just because the new lady was wearing a nice suit and had a really nice figure and a big butt, but Meg wasn’t the only one having a weird reaction. Feng had seen her fair share of new people join the group for the first time, and it had never been like this. Jake wasn’t distracted enough by this to actually forget to be mean and catch Meg, but he was looking over at the lady too, like he couldn’t believe it. Dwight was staring way more than Jake, and Adam looked surprised in a way she’d never seen before. Beside her, Claudette had an expression on her face like she was trying to make sure she wasn’t out of her mind, and over by the fire Nea was gaping, and even Tapp looked astonished.

 _Why?_ thought Feng, looking back at the lady and Kate and the new guy. She looked sort of familiar, but Feng couldn’t put her finger on it. _Is she a meme lady? I feel like I’ve used reaction images and gifs with her on them before…That would make Meg make sense. She’d probably go into a coma if the “Guess I’ll Die” guy showed up in here. But everyone…hang on. Damn it, I know this—it’s in my mind, hiding. Who is she?_

“Where’s Quentin?” asked Laurie nervously, looking around and completely unaffected by the reaction everyone else seemed to be having to the new lady. As Feng noticed that, she picked up that David seemed like he might know who the lady was, but looked a little less affected too. He seemed way more excited to see the guy with Kate. Ace looked excited and surprised, but that might have just as easily been because he’d been waiting a lot of time for a hot middle-aged woman, which he had made no secret about in numerous conversations.  

 _Hey, more power to you, buddy,_ thought Feng, _Who knows. Maybe she likes bad gamblers. I can’t believe you always said one would come eventually and one has. You go get her, Ace. Dreams do come true. But still,_ she added mentally, turning her attention back to the woman herself, _Going by reactions, she’s got to be, like, an American or maybe Canadian thing. Or wait, but, Adam seems like he knows her too. Fuck, I should know this. I’ve seen her myself, I think. She’s an actress?_

“He’s right behind us,” said Kate, looking not so entirely like it was fine as she was trying to make it sound, “Don’t worry—it wasn’t that kind of a trial. This is, uh, Jeff Johansen, and Jane Romero. It’s her first day and trial here, so take it easy.”

There was a pretty big reaction to “Jane Romero” around the group. Even Jake looked completely taken off guard, and Feng had almost never seen him look like that.

 _Jane Romer…Oh!_ thought Feng, finally placing it, _She’s that like—big deal talk show lady in America, from like the 90s. She’s the lady from the “I Think You’ve Fucked With Quite Enough” meme!_

That seemed pretty cool to her, but all the Americans were losing their shit, and the Canadians weren’t holding up so well either.

 _Chill,_ thought Feng, watching Meg scramble up and try to brush herself off and Adam quickly and awkwardly adjust his tie and vest and the completely frozen look of astonishment that hadn’t shifted a muscle on Tapp’s face since she’d arrived, _She’s not, like, Meryl Streep._

“Jane Romero?” asked Ace, stepping forward, “From _The Jane Romero Show?_ In the flesh?”

“I…am,” answered the woman, looking as if she were having an out of body experience and still holding Kate’s hand like she’d forgotten she was doing it.

A huge grin spread over Ace’s face and he hurriedly crossed over to her, giving her a rather dramatic bow and extending a hand. “Ace Visconti,” he said, all friendliness and charm.

Jane looked down at the hand and then took it and shook it firmly, which hadn’t been what Ace had been going for—he’d been going to kiss the hand, Feng was pretty sure, and she was pretty sure Jane knew that too, but Ace took it in stride and gave her back about the warmest handshake Feng had ever seen. _Damn, don’t lay it on too thick. You got charm, but you gotta seem a little aloof or the girls’ll never go for it._

“Great to have you here—in the group I mean,” added Ace, “Not in this—whatever it is—bad world…place. Beats being alone. Anyway. Welcome! It gets easier—promise. And Jeff!” He turned his full attention to the other newcomer then, taking his hand and warmly shaking Jeff’s one hand in both of his, “Heard a lot about you—seen you a few times. Sorry it’s taken so long.”

Almost as fast, David was up and hurrying over. He pushed past Ace and wrapped his arms around an only slightly surprised Jeff, pulling him into a bearhug.

“Ya fight damn well, mate,” said David, looking to Feng incredibly happy and excited to see this guy, “Ah can’t thank you enough.”

Jeff grinned back and clasped his arm. “You too—I really think we almost had him.”

“To be fair, I think we did get him,” said Kate, “Got all five of us.”

Jeff looked surprised, like he hadn’t thought of that. “Did we? Is he dead then? Completely? Or, are they like us?”

Kate hesitated and looked at David, who looked even more surprised than she did.

 _They’re talking about the Clown,_ thought Feng, _Kate did say she blew him up. But is that possible? The Cannibal didn’t stay dead, according to Philip, but he did get killed not in a trial. Outside a trial is more real for us, in one is more real for them? That’s weird—that doesn’t make sense. I still don’t get how the Cannibal didn’t die. Like—I get it in a trial. Those are fake. The rules all work different than outside them, and I guess stuff is a little weird out here too, but it’s not the same. It’s been like a month or something and Dwight is still having trouble, and I’ve got a bad scar from running through the woods here right after I showed up and falling on a sharp rock, but no scars from trials. And we all kind of know stuff like how to sacrifice things in the fire, and we all feel like we’re dead for real if we die out here, so it’s probably true, but then, like, why the fuck did the Cannibal get to come back? That’s shady. It’s fishy. I don’t like it. It’s like he cheated and loaded into the night with an extra life. I don’t get one—why does he?... Maybe trials just are more real for them, and outside isn’t? That’s weird, though. It’d be a dumb way to design things. No—that’s gotta be wrong. It doesn’t make sense why it would be that way, but I guess Philip stayed hurt after getting hurt bad in a trial, even when we got him out of it, while Claudette and Dwight got better, but the next time we saw him, after the Entity had erased his mind again, he was all better too—well, like, more scars, but it didn’t take him weeks and weeks like it’s taking Dwight. I’m gonna put a pin in that, because it’s definitely important, but I’m missing things they’re saying._

“Either way,” Kate was saying out loud, looking hopeful but also like she didn’t expect that hope to really pan out, “I guess we’ll find out one way or another.”

“It’d be grand if we got him,” said David thoughtfully, “But also a damn shame. Explosion’s a quick way ta go.”

Kate and Jeff nodded absently, passively agreeing with the desire for much stronger vengeance.

“I’m sorry,” said Kate, turning back to Jane, “Lot of weird stuff happened to us recently as won’t make sense to you yet.”

“I’m, uh, becoming accustomed to that being the case,” answered Jane, who was staring down at her arm. “Do we—uh,” she held out the arm for Kate to see, “This is just how it is? We go entirely back to normal after?”

“That’s about the size of it,” answered Kate.

“Occasionally something will stick,” said Dwight, making his way a little unsteadily over to Jane and Jeff and offering them both welcoming handshakes, “But never anything big. We aren’t sure why. Kate said it’s your first day, right? Was this your first, or second trial?”

“Trial?” asked Jane, trying to catch up and still looking a little overwhelmed and vacant, “Is that what you call—? Uh, yes. That was my first…experience here.”

“I’m sorry,” answered Dwight, meaning it, “I’m Dwight Fairfield. I’m sure you’ve had a pretty awful morning, but if it helps, the first couple trials are the roughest. You’re really lucky ending up with a group on your first go, too. I don’t think that’s ever happened…Hang on…”

“Wait. Did you make it?” asked Meg, making the same connection he had, an almost cunning look sparking to life on her face.

That was an interesting question. No one, and Feng meant _nobody,_ lived through their first trial, but by appearances they had. If someone left a trial alive, they either came up the hatch, or basically walked back into existence at the fire, usually. If they died, they appeared in the position they’d been killed, and all three of them had just waltzed on up here. Plus, the only way to bring someone back to the campfire was to escape with them.

 _No way,_ thought Feng, trying to disprove it, eyes widening, _That’s legendary. There’s no way she did._

“I did,” said Jane, sounding a lot less excited about it than Feng would have. Almost sad.

“Fuck yeah!” said Meg excitedly, grabbing Jake by the shoulder, “Jane Romero’s a living legend! She lived through her first trial! Nobody’s ever done that!” She let go of him and bolted it the fifteen feet to Jane, skidding to a stop in front of her and holding out a hand like the people before her had. “I’m Meg!” she said excitedly, “I was a huge fan of your show and your book and your memes—you’re an icon! I can’t fucking believe you lived through your first trial!”

Jane took the hand, a mixture of unsure and bemused, and Meg shook it vigorously, almost quivering with rambunctious energy.

“You don’t get it!” said Meg, still not over it. To be fair, Feng was mentally reeling herself, and really damn jealous. “None of us did that! Usually people don’t even make the first like, five! At least! I don’t think anyone in this place ever has done that. You’re a god!”

 _That_ wasn’t entirely true, although none of them knew it. There had one other who had managed it, once. A long, long time ago there had been a young woman named Alex Lin, and she had lived through her first four back to back, but it was a fact which had become all but lost the Entity’s world over time. To those that remained, Jane was indeed the first.

“I think the credit goes more to Kate,” said Jane, glancing over at her.

“To Kate?” asked Meg, still shaking Jane’s hand, even though it had been a good eight seconds now.

“She broke the man’s arm. I think that’s the only reason we made it,” answered Jane.

“She what?” asked Jake, looking over at Kate, astonished. “Whose—?”

Behind them, Quentin burned into existence.

Laurie’s face lit up and Feng felt relieved too. There wasn’t really anything she could do about it, but he was probably going to get fucked over a lot in trials now, like Dwight did.  While she was glad she herself wasn’t the one about to get endlessly tunneled by every single killer, it also made her feel shitty for the both of them. And what if they ended up on a team together? A bad deal all around. Plus, Feng had never been in a Krueger trial. She and Kate and a couple of the newbies were the only ones who hadn’t—not a normal one, of course, everyone had had those—but the ones no one would talk about after. Even Nea, even now that they were girlfriends, still hadn’t really wanted to talk about what had gone on. Feng had remembered the few things she said, though—especially the way she’d described being tortured. It had been almost a throwaway comment, about being willing to do anything if she could have made it stop, but that had really gotten inside Feng and stuck with her, because Nea wasn’t the kind of person to ever give up. She didn’t know what had happened to Quentin yesterday with the Nightmare, except that he’d tried to kill him, and he hadn’t told any of them about any of it except the fighting stuff he’d planned with Meg—she was at least almost certain, at least, because she’d been trying really hard to eavesdrop a lot. Whatever had happened to him, though, she was smart enough to be able to read the obvious.

 _How did you last so long?_ wondered Feng, too distracted by the torn jeans and shirt and wounds to be feeling relief that he was back and okay, _How did it take him forty minutes to kill you. I know you fought back. Did you fight really hard? Can someone fight him that hard, to stay alive for almost an hour? Or was he doing other stuff first._ She couldn’t ask him that, though. _He wouldn’t tell me anyway,_ thought Feng unhappily, _Nobody tells me stuff like that. Even Nea. If any of us went to someone in the group to talk about really bad shit, it’d be Dwight or Claudette or maybe Ace. Definitely not me._

The same was true for her—Feng also liked to keep things inside, locked away forever, but on the rare occasion she did want to discuss something really tough, those would be some of her top picks too, maybe even over Nea, if she were afraid Nea wouldn’t like what she wanted to talk about, or might hold it against her, or felt like it just made her sound stupid or bad. But it still wasn’t a fun thought.

“Quentin!” said Kate, dashing the two feet it took for her to reach him and throwing her arms around him.

He returned the hug without having to remind her to be gentle, because unlike Meg’s hugs, Kate was very mindful with hers, and already being careful to not injure him.

“Are you okay?” she asked, letting go of the hug but keeping her hands on his shoulders, face full of worry. To Feng, Jane and Jeff both also looked relieved and similarly concerned.

 _What the fuck kind of a trial?_ wondered Feng, _Kate broke someone’s arms and something weird happened to Quentin again?_

“Did he hurt you at all, like he said he wouldn’t? I’m gonna break his neck and throw him off the old ironworks next time I see that son of a bitch,” said Kate, dead-set on whoever’s death she was promising.

“No, not really,” said Quentin reassuringly, “He knocked me around a little and then let me go without killing me at all.”

“He what?” asked Kate, taken aback.

Jeff looked massively relieved.

“He said he wants me to check Joey’s arm in other trials to make sure it’s healing in exchange,” explained Quentin, “I don’t know if it was really that, or that Joey talked him out of it. Probably a little bit of both.”

“Thank god,” said Jeff, “I’m sorry we left you.”

“Don’t be,” said Quentin, “This was way better than I was hoping for.”

“He really let you go?” asked Kate, still trying to believe that.

“Yeah,” said Quentin, “I don’t know. I mean, I was sort of hoping Joey would talk him into sacrificing me instead of moriing me. I guess I overshot the mark. I don’t know if he had already decided and was just being an asshole to you at the exit or if it was a split-second thing, but I’m sorry he was such a jerk.”

“Yeah,” said Kate, “I’m still gonna beat the shit outa him.”

“Please do,” said Quentin.

“You don’t have any idea why?” asked Jane, looking interested, like she as trying to mentally solve a problem.

Quentin shrugged. “Well, he does need the arm looked at. And also probably because I let him push me around. Which sucks. He said it was because I ‘take orders,’” he added with a grimace, “Which I guess I did. But I’m just so fucking tired today. I wanted to come back to the camp and hear the rest of _The Empire Strikes Back._ ”

“Sorry,” said Kate, looking similarly grossed out.

“Well, I did make him lie down for like seven minutes to get the arm set, which I totally didn’t have to do to set the arm, but figured he would believe and be really uncomfortable about the whole time,” said Quentin, looking a little better, “Which he was.”

“Heh. Dumbass. Nice one,” said Kate, pleased.

“It’s the little victories,” replied Quentin with a smile.

“I’m sorry, can you all kind of slowly go through all of this again?” asked Dwight from where he was leaning on his walking stick a bit behind Kate. “I’m glad somehow no one got sacrificed, and we got two people back, but what the heck happened?”

“Yeah, what’s this ‘Joey’? Who was talking to who?” asked Meg.

“Legion trial,” answered Kate, “We got a lot to tell y’all about how they work, too.” When she said it, just for a second, she looked like she might feel bad for Meg, and Feng wondered what that was about.

“So Joey’s the fourth one?” asked Jake, “The one with a skull mask? And you broke his arm.”

“Yeah, we got him and Frank,” answered Kate, “It’s complicated.”

“You got _two_ killers?” asked Dwight, massively worried.

“No—it ain’t like you think. We aren’t gonna get more killers per trial. They swapped out partway—I’ll explain,” answered Kate.

“Wait, you _broke Frank’s arm?”_ asked Meg, eyes big and shining.

“No, just Joey,” said Kate apologetically.

“She did break Frank’s nose though,” said Quentin, “Royally kicked Joey’s ass and broke his arm.”

“With her legs,” added Jeff, looking like he was reliving the moment.

“You broke his arm,” said Feng, imaging it. _I want to break arms._ “Did it feel great?”

Kate nodded, grinning.

“Kicking ass and breaking arms and that little Frank bitch’s nose. Kate, if you weren’t straight I’d kiss you so hard right now,” said Meg, her excitement radiating off her.

“Well, I’m at _least_ a one on the Kinsey scale,” said Kate, winking at her, “Meet me in the forest later.”

“Okay, well, this all sounds very important and I want to hear it in detail,” said Dwight, trying to regain control of the conversation, “But we should start by introducing ourselves—then the trial.” He turned back to Jane and Jeff, “I’m sorry. You both just got here. Please, come and sit down and we’ll try and actually, uh, actually meet. At least tell you everyone’s names. I know this is a little overwhelming,” he added to Jane as he started to move towards the fire, motioning them after him, “We’ll try and get all of it worked out.”

“Y-yeah,” said Claudette, stepping forward and looking like she was afraid to look Jane Romero squarely in the face, “I’ve got—we have some coffee, and bread, if you want any.”

“Uh,” said Jane, looking more and more like she was having a truly, wildly out of body experience, “I. …You know what, yes. Yes, anything strong you have to drink would be wonderful.” As Dwight motioned them to sit down at the fire, Jane looked back over her shoulder at Quentin uncertainly. “Don’t you need to get some kind of medical attention?”

“I’m okay,” answered Quentin, shifting awkwardly and moving to the opposite side of the fire, across from her and Jeff, “See? Neck stopped bleeding and everything.”

Jane looked around at the others about the fire to see if they were going to take that.

 _Don’t look at me,_ thought Feng as the woman glanced her way, _I’m not much of a medic. Besides, he’s probably tired of people being all over him and touching him and asking him if he’s ok. I know I would be._

“I’m really sorry,” said Dwight more quietly to Jeff as the older man sat down beside him, looking over the fire and the assorted gear around it curiously, “When you showed up, it was almost the exact same time the Legion did—like the same day. And they were doing this thing where they’d run maskless and try to lure us in by acting like they were other survivors, trapped here too, and then kill us. Everyone was scared you were one of them, but we left you alone for way too long. We should have been better than that.”

Listening, Jeff looked surprised, then thoughtful, and finally he gave a slow nod. “Thanks. You were just trying to look out for each other, though. I understand.”

“Still,” said Dwight, wanting to sincerely accept the responsibility, “We shouldn’t have done that, and it was largely my call. I’m sorry.”

Jeff watched him and nodded again, taking it seriously in return. “Forgiven,” he said, “I’m out now, and that’s what matters.”

“Thanks, for last trial,” said Claudette, passing Jane a tin of coffee and offering Jeff one too, which he took.

“And for back with me and Susie,” said Meg, “You’re hardcore as fuck.”

“You’re pretty metal yourself,” said Jeff with a smile, sniffing the coffee and then taking a sip.

“Okay, I gotta ask—so, when you went off that highway in your car, that was the Entity?” asked Meg, waiting about 0.8ths of a second before flip-flopping and turning her attention to Jane.

“Uh, I suppose so,” said Jane uncertainly, looking very uncomfortable.

“Meg,” said Adam reproachfully.

 _Wait, so she was dead before Meg left?_ thought Feng in confusion. “Hang on,” said Feng out loud, holding up a hand, “You said this was your first trial. But you drove your car off a bridge before Meg got here? How does that work?”

She looked over at Laurie, and from her to Dwight, then Nea, trying to see if people were following.

“I mean, isn’t it…linear?” asked Feng, “Like, I’m from later than Dwight and Meg, and I also showed up here later. Laurie’s from longer ago, and she’s been here a long time—like Philip. Is that not how this works? When are you from?” she asked Jane.

“2003,” said Jane, looking a little uneasy.

Feng held up a hand like _You see?_

“Yeah, I don’t…” Quentin glanced at the others and then slowly said, “I thought, well, when I first ran into you guys, that I’d only been here a little while. I know our perception of time is off, but you four already knew how to do trials a lot better than me when we ran into each other, and I’m from…at least before Dwight and Claudette, anyway. Not by like, ages, but. A couple years.”

Meg looked over at him in surprise.

“Yeah, to make that weirder since I guess we might as well,” said Jeff, “All four of the Legion kids went to highschool with me.”

“What?!” blurted out Meg before she could stop herself, eyes going wide and then staring into space as she ran through that for a second. She turned to look at Jeff again, confused massively now. “Wait—hold on. I thought they were shitty Gen Z kids. When were you in highschool? Like 19….”

“1996 is when they went missing,” answered Jeff, “Susie’s the youngest, but I think she was…seventeen? Back then? Maybe sixteen, I’m not sure. But if you’re saying they only just showed up when I did.”

“A couple weeks ago,” continued Meg for him.

“We’re living in a shitty non-linear time-bubble hell,” finished Feng, kind of pissed about that. “Hold on, though—you all knew about Jane being gone?” she asked, looking around the group. All the Americans, several of the Canadians, and Adam all suddenly looked very uncomfortable. “Well?” she prodded, a little irritated.

“Yeah,” answered Meg, glancing at the others.

“So you disappeared after Jane,” said Feng to Meg, “In the real world. But here, in the Entity’s world, you disappeared before her. But in the real world, Jane had already been taken, even though in this world, she hadn’t yet—right? So like, whatever will be changed, has been the whole time.”

“Like in Artemis Fowl,” agreed Meg thoughtfully.

“Again, that doesn’t help anyone but you, when you—" said Jake, glancing at her, “you know what, nevermind.”

“Technically, I think _Jumanji_ is still on the table too. Like, not as hardcore in line with this, but not ruled out,” said Meg.

“Well, I don’t like that at all,” said Feng, crossing her arms, “How can the nasty spider be so powerful that it can change our world before it does shit here itself?”

“Maybe it doesn’t work like that—who knows if its perception of time is the same as ours, or if we remembered a world where Jane Romero _didn’t_ disappear in 2003 until a couple of hours ago, when the Entity rewrote things, and only now we can’t remember it was ever different,” said Dwight, “We can’t know. Besides, it’s not helping to get into this right now. Especially Jane, who is here on her first day, first trial, listening to us talk about quantum time bullshit. Everyone take a breath, and let’s introduce ourselves, and just, chill out for a second. Then I want to hear what happened in the trial. Slowly, and coherently. Can we do that?”

There was a slow consensus, and noise died down as people found seats and calmed and then, starting with Dwight, they went through the now all-too familiar motions of passing introductions around the circle. Name, previous location and vocation, little fact—like a round table introduction the first day of a class.

Then, they’d heard an account of the trial. Kate shouldered the weight of the retelling, but everyone had their own chunks to add. It was some of the wildest shit Feng had ever heard. When Kate had gotten to the part in the story where she explained how she’d broken Legion’s arm and kicked his ass in a fight, Jake hadn’t said anything, but he’d sort of covered his mouth with a fist, leaning forward to rest against the arm, and Feng had caught that behind the hand he’d looked super pleased. All his practice fighting with Kate had finally paid off. It had amazed all of them—especially Laurie, David, and Tapp, who had been trying since the day they got here to win a fight. Nobody had thought it was really even possible.

There had been the skull mask Legion’s weird behavior, and the fact all of them sort of used to be friends with Jeff and had weird time discrepancy going on, but that hadn’t been the real kicker. Not even the last stuff they talked about had been—that Legion had made a deal with them, to set Joey’s arm in exchange for letting everyone but one go—or that Legion had decided to let them all go in exchange for a debt, even Quentin. What was really wild was that now they knew how the Legion worked. At least, sort of.

They’d never really been sure what the Legion’s ability was, and back in the day Meg had held an episode of _Welcome to Hell with Meg Thomas_ where they’d taken bets on what the Legion was, and shapeshifter had been a kind of popular option, and the truth had been sort of vaguely thrown out there too, but not in the way that the truth had turned out to be. _Four kids in a trench coat,_ thought Feng, running through mental images of the Legion, _Four people in one body. Four pairs of eyes watching for movement in a chase, four minds strategizing, one unit. A possession stack helping the host hunt and kill._

It was effective, if gross. Meg had asked a lot of questions about if they were sure when Kate had gotten to that part and described how it had looked when Joey was fighting for control of the body with Frank, and then gotten quiet, which was really unusual for Meg. Feng was guessing she was probably wondering why Susie hadn’t helped her when she’d gotten attacked by Frank and maybe angry or hurt about that, since she and the one girl were sort of friends, according to her, and skull boy who had never seemed nice before to any of them had at least kind of stuck up for Jeff. Something like that anyway would make sense for her to be upset about. Feng herself was wondering about if that meant the skull Legion was out of commission for a few weeks, or if she was going to get to fuck up his injured arm in trials herself and live a little of the high life Kate had. She didn’t have any personal feelings about any of the four—even the one Meg had spoken so highly of—so it didn’t affect her a whole lot, until it occurred to her that this might make it very hard for Susie to help them. After all, if they were trying to talk her into becoming Philip 2.0 and spying on the Entity, but the other three Legions were assholes who hated them all still, how much could she possibly get done without the Entity getting wise to them, and maybe even double-checking to see if they were being shady with other killers. They definitely couldn’t tell her any sensitive information at all, and even keeping her in their network might just be way too much of a safety hazard, her intentions towards them now aside.

 _She’s compromised,_ thought Feng, watching the hard to read expression flickering just beneath the surface on Meg’s face, _Susie’s too big a risk. We can’t really use her like we thought—we maybe shouldn’t talk to her at all. That sucks. Meg worked hard recruiting her. If I let myself get killed by someone to win them over, I’d be pretty damn pissed about it if it worked out like this._

“Do you think there’s a chance you can talk Joey into stopping?” Dwight asked Jeff, “It sounded like you were making some real progress.”

Jeff shrugged, looking tired. “I’d like to try. I hope so, but I feel like I can’t give you a straight answer. I’d have told you none of them would have done this in the first place, so I guess I don’t know as well as I think what they’re like. Susie was always shy and kind of sweet in a rambunctious way, and little—the kind of person you can always get to do dumb shit like look up if you tell them ‘stupid’ is written on the ceiling. Maybe she was a troublemaker too, but pretty far from malicious, or sadistic. You know, throw glitter all over a car interior, but not kick a cat. It’s so hard to understand them. I’ve been sacrificed by her and I _still_ can’t get it into my head that it was really her. And Joey—Joey was nice too—a little bit young, maybe—loud and easy to impress, and kind of a showoff, but not a bad guy. Julie was smart and hot and knew it, and pretty sure of herself, kind of aloof, but always seemed nice and cool enough, and Frank was definitely going for the whole badboy thing pretty hard in highschool, but he wasn’t actually a pain. They… Frank, he paid me my first art commission. Fifty bucks and some beer for a mural. Because it was fair, and he valued it. I’d never been paid for art before. We were all dumb teenagers with jobs that paid shit, if we had them at all, but he still did that. And I would have thought that…I mean, Frank was—he wasn’t nice, but, with that kind of level-playingfield fairness, honor among thieves, or among shit troublemaking teens, Frank wouldn’t just…” He seemed kind of defeated, and genuinely sad. “But, uh. But I’ve seen them. I’ve…I mean, my first night here, Julie…tore out my guts. I know I’m wrong. But I still don’t feel the way I should about it, and I know it, so I’m a bad choice for an objective answer.”

They were quiet for a second, thinking that over.

“He seems very easily influenced,” commented Jane thoughtfully, “Joey, that is. You were able quite easily to get him to connect with you, and I got him to listen to me, if only for a minute, and he seems to have been persuaded by Quentin too—into being less violent than usual. But Frank convinced him to go back to helping him instead just as fast. He might be someone you could reach mentally and emotionally on his own, but I think that’s the problem,” she added, looking up and glancing at the others around her, “’On his own’ isn’t really a thing that is ever going to happen—not with any of them. They’re all…extensions of each other now. Even if you got him to like you, wouldn’t Frank just try to force him to stay inside and not use the body anymore?”

Meg looked horrified.

“What the Legion seems and sounds like to me, is a little bit like a cult,” continued Jane, “A very small one, but the mentality is there, and cult mentality is incredibly hard for people to break from once they get hooked on it. It trains you to stop thinking for yourself until the default answer to any mental question isn’t what _you_ think, it’s what you think the _group_ thinks about whatever issue. It becomes second nature. You have to re-hardwire a brain to get past that once it really sets in—that’s a large part of what makes cults so effective, and hard to get out of. The more of a strong individualism a person had before, the easier it is to get them help, but even a strong-willed person can get lost in the hivemind after long enough.”

“Well, how do you help people in a cult?” asked Meg, looking worried.

“Unfortunately,” said Jane, “You separate them from the cult. That’s always the first step. Getting them out of the environment is largely what makes recovering and re-wiring how they think possible.”

“But with Legion,” Jake finished for her, watching Meg and Jane’s expressions carefully, “That’s physically impossible. There is no splitting them apart.”

“So. We can’t do…anything?” said Meg, looking from Jake to Jane, “That’s…That’s not fair. We should still…”

“Not for sure nothing,” said Tapp, glancing over at Meg, “We’ve worked with people in gangs, which can be pretty similar. If you get a plant, it usually means someone who already has at least as much of a vested interest in their or their family’s personal welfare as they do the group’s, and it’s a matter of greed and safety, or they’re on someone’s shit list and out of options, but occasionally there’s people for whom the group just got too much—crossed some line. Maybe a near-death experience produces a sort of change of heart. It’s rare, but it happens, and when it does, you can get someone on your side even while staying with a gang and in the middle of it.” He gave Meg a reassuring smile. “You should keep trying.”

Meg looked massively relieved and smiled back, then looked down at her knees thoughtfully for a few seconds. “Did they tell you what the Entity does to them if they disobey?” asked Meg finally, looking back up at the people who’d been in the trial.

Kate and Jeff traded glances, trying to remember.

“He said he’d get in trouble, for sure,” said Kate slowly, “I think he said he thought he’d die. Right? Because I remember tellin’ him he was overreacting, ‘cause we’ve known killers do worse than lose a fight and got off just a little beat up.”

“I know this isn’t exactly related to that, but he did say that the Entity only goes after whoever it’s most mad at,” offered Quentin, glancing at David and Kate, and then Laurie, “After you guys left. Like, that if it got mad at them because Frank broke the rules and switched out with Joey, it’d be so mad it wouldn’t even remember Joey didn’t get any kills.”

“The fucking…bastard,” said Laurie slowly, thinking out loud.

Quentin nodded. “I think so. It makes sense, right? Since he’s never done anything like this before.”

“Who did what?” asked Jane, looking from Quentin to Laurie to Dwight, who she had already learned in the hour she’d been there was the most likely person to give a straight answer.

“We got in a bad trial yesterday,” answered Quentin for himself, “Two of the killers sort of…tag-teamed. Uh. Anyway, we didn’t know why they’d worked together, since that’s never happened before, but. I’m thinking probably one of them needed the other’s help, and the second one knew that if he helped, he could break way more rules than normal and get away with it, because what the other one was doing was going to distract their boss from anything he did. But it’s just a guess,” he added, looking down at his hands, “I don’t really know.”

“You’re probably right,” said Jake, “It seems like something we should check with Philip about next chance we get.”

“Yeah,” added Dwight, “He probably has a pretty good idea of how that kind of thing works for the Killers too.”

“Philip?” asked Jane.

“Oh man, there’s so much to tell you guys,” said Meg, looking a little less down than before and holding her gaze on Jane for several seconds after speaking, eyes big and shiny.

 _I bet you’re really glad you got your shirt off this morning,_ thought Feng, watching her, _Got those washboards to show off now. I bet she won’t take the bait thought. You look too young for her._

“There is,” said Dwight, turning to Jeff and Jane, “And we can bring you up to speed, but are you sure you want to go into this right now? It’s already been a lot, and if it’s overwhelming, especially this being, what, two hours after you got here?” he added to Jane, “You might just want to take a little time to…think. Adjust, as much as any of us can. Or have someone break down good strategies for trials before you get pulled into another.”

“How…how fast does that happen?” asked Jane, looking worriedly from him to the others around her.

“Varies,” answered Ace with a shrug, “Sometimes minutes, more often a couple hours. Sometimes you get lucky and get about half a day, though that’s rarer.”

“And when it happens,” continued Jane, gaze on Ace now, “We end up in a place like that swamp, and someone…someone will hurt us and kill us, unless we escape again?”

“Yeah,” he answered, sympathetic look on his face, “It’s rough.”

“Is there a way out?” asked Jane, face pale, and glancing down at her arms and hands for a moment before looking back up. “Completely out? Forever?”

“We’re working on that,” said Dwight, “That’s actually—one of the killers, Philip, he’s been helping us in secret. We were hoping one of those Legion guys would join us too—I don’t think you saw her. Girl with pink hair, the one Jeff was calling Susie.”

“You got through to her?” asked Jeff excitedly, looking at Meg.

Meg flushed and gave a sort of _I’m hoping so_ shrug.

“How did you get a killer to help you?” asked Jane, attention still on Dwight.

“He’s—Philip isn’t bad,” answered Claudette, “It’s complicated. Lord…there is so much to explain.”

“Yeah,” said Dwight, thinking that over, “Okay, we should prioritize. Meg, you and Feng have both got really good trial track records, but she stealths and you don’t, so together you’re a good balance of style variety. You two go with Jane and break down everything you can about how to survive one of these. We’ve been talking for about an hour, so someone’s probably going to get picked up again soon, and we should prep as much as we can before that happens. Give a comprehensive overview of the killers, too. Jeff—you might want to go. I know you’ve been here for a bit now, but there are probably still a few of the killers you haven’t seen. It’ll probably help. God knows it would have helped me, back in the day.”

Feng and Meg glanced at each other and nodded.

“If you have time for more, like trial areas or some of the more complicated tactics, do it. And I’ll grab you both a medkit from my stash so you’ve got something for your next trial,” continued Dwight, turning back to Jane and Jeff. “Meanwhile, Kate, the idea you actually beat one of them in a fight is massive, so we need to go over that. What worked, why. Jake, you need to be here for that, probably David and Laurie and you too, Tapp—you’re the best fighters. Jeff, I want to hear anything else that might help us with Joey once you’re done with Meg and Feng, but go do that first, and Quentin, I want to hear more about what happened with Frank and Joey and the arm, because we might be able to use that, but people are probably going to get pulled into a trial before we get to that, so feel free to catch a breather and get a little rest first.”

“I would love to know how you kicked someone’s ass,” commented Tapp, “I’ve been trying to do that since day one.”

“But I kinda want to hear that too,” said Meg.

“Later,” winked Kate, “Give you the full version.”

“Before we split, do either of you have any questions?” asked Dwight, turning back to Jane and Jeff, “I’m sorry—I know this is a lot and I’m kind of steamrolling you two. We’re just trying to catch up before something else happens.”

“I think I’m okay,” said Jeff, “I do want to hear about your friend killer when we get a chance, though.”

“I’ll go with them, try to catch them up on that after trial breakdowns if there’s time,” offered Adam, and Feng caught the look he was giving Jane in the moment before he glanced off and straightened his tie again.

_Damn, everyone’s all over her. You’re gonna have to fight Ace and Meg for it, buddy._

Jane caught it too, and looked from him to Ace, who was still grinning at her very warmly, to Meg, who had been staring at her and hurriedly looked away and tried to seem nonchalant when caught. Jane got a very weary _Oh boy…_ look on her face.

 _I feel you,_ thought Feng, _Fans are the worst. I mean, they’re the best, too, but not when you’re suddenly in a room with them between you and the door and you can see them mentally calculating if they’re going to be able to sneakily touch your butt when you walk past._

“That would be wonderful, thank you,” said Jane politely, standing up, “Where should we go?”

 _Oh right, I got drafted,_ remembered Feng, standing up herself and looking over at Meg.

“Uhhh, woods I guess,” said Meg, “Got some trees to practice with for hiding stuff. Just follow me, Jeff and Miss Romero—can I call you Jane?” she asked hopefully.

“Why not,” said Jane, looking like she was dissociating.

 _Big mood,_ thought Feng, following.

“Okay, Jane and Jeff—JJ, this way,” said Meg enthusiastically, motioning towards the treeline, and then turning her back to them and glancing at Feng to mouth ‘ _JJ? Why the FUCK did I say that?’_

 _Better you than me,_ thought Feng, not about to make an idiot of herself in front of new people. ‘ _Chill. You’re being weird,’_ she mouthed back.

Meg made a disgruntled _yeah, I been know_ face back at her and kept walking.

“This is probably quite a bit to take in,” offered Adam, walking abreast of Jane and glancing over, “I’m fairly new here myself.”

“It is,” answered Jane, still looking kind of out of it. She kept walking in silence for a few seconds and then glanced from him to Jeff and then back to him. “We’re really all going to die, over and over in here? And feel it?”

“I’m afraid so,” answered Adam seriously.

“That’s…unimaginably horrible,” answered Jane, staring off into nothing ahead of her. She glanced back at Adam. “You’re sure we aren’t dead?”

“Yes,” said Adam, trying to give her a reassuring smile, “I know it’s awful, but there are good things too. The group here offers support and a break between trials, and we find things to do. We spend a lot of time planning and practicing and trying to find ways out, but there are enjoyable things to make it bearable as well. Meg especially makes time between trials worthwhile. She’s working on a sort of theater production of _Dirty Dancing_ right now.”

Feng saw Meg’s eyes bug out and she sent her a panicked glance. ‘ _Why the fuck would he tell her,’_ mouthed Meg, ‘ _Oh my god.’_

 _What,_ thought Feng, suddenly feeling jealous and threatened by Jane at the before unseen potential of losing Meg Movies over her existence, _You weren’t going to stop just because Jane Romero talk show whatever her job was is here, were you. Uh-uh, fuck that. I’ll throw her into the campfire if that’s what it takes._

Feng took a beat to try and tone down the bloodlust.

“Really?” asked Jane, glancing from him to Meg.

“That sounds pretty damn cool,” said Jeff, trying to speed up and catch up to Meg. “It’s going to be a relief to have something to do between trials other than wander around and wonder when I’m going back into one.”

“She reenacts and retells films as a one-man production too,” said Adam, “She’s very good at it.”

“I suppose it probably does help a lot with morale,” commented Jane thoughtfully, “You’ll have to show me sometime, Meg.”

Meg shot Feng another _I wish I was dead_ look.

 _No way, fuck that. Nea and I are getting really good at dancing and I’m gonna see you keep doing movies if I have to break your kneecaps,_ thought Feng, filing that away on her to-do list for later, _What else are we supposed to live for!_

“Okay, here should be good,” she said out loud, gesturing for the others to stop. “Dwight’s right we don’t know how long we got until another trial starts, so we’re just going to go over regular trial stuff first, and then a quick overview of all the killers and what they’re like, and then we’ll do more in detail. You both know the basics? Five generators, exit doors, getting people off hooks, hiding?”

“Uhm,” said Jane nervously, “Only a little.”

 _Great, back to square one then,_ thought Feng, knowing it was entirely unfair, but further annoyed by Jane’s existence and how it was inconveniencing her. “Okay. Guess we’ll have to go over the whole everything.”

 

* * *

 

 

They had gotten through about fifty percent of the killer information and all of their basic trial breakdown when Feng felt her legs starting to vanish.

 _Fan-fuck’n-tastic,_ she thought bitterly, pre-missing very much what she knew was likely to very quickly become a broken almost-been-one-whole-day-and-no-deaths streak.

“Is this…normal?” asked Jane worriedly, holding up a vanishing arm.

 _And with her. Great,_ thought Feng. The longer they’d been explaining to Jane how to do things, the more Feng had started to dislike her. It wasn’t that she was really _doing_ anything, per se, but everyone just liked her like—100%--just right off the bat. They were all acting like she was such a big deal. Even though the little group of people Feng could actually _see_ was just her, Meg, Jeff, Adam, and Jane, she had very fresh memories of the way everyone at the campfire had been staring at Jane since she’d appeared—even Nea. And Adam and Meg and the new guy Jeff were all being weird about her. Like she was the fucking headliner for LLG’s pro-gaming championship lineup or something. Adam was always serious and professional, like a teacher, but around Jane he seemed like he was having to hold himself back from asking _her_ all kinds of questions, and Meg wouldn’t stop looking at her boobs when she thought Jane wasn’t paying attention. Even Jeff seemed to be giving extra weight to what she said, and why?—Because she’d been a—a talk show host? _Who cares? That doesn’t take any skill. She’s just some lady who can keep a conversation. We told her how everything works and she’s still not putting two-and-two together to get on her own that her arm vanishing and none of us screaming about it means she’s going into a trial. Like, duh. What else would it even mean?_

“Yeah,” said Meg, looking down at her own legs and tilting a half-transparent ankle, “It means you’ve got your second trial in a few seconds. But hey! Feng and I are going too—we’ll help you through it.”

_I can’t fucking believe it—Meg’s happy. She’s fucking happy to be going into a trial, just because she knows she’s going in with Jane. What the fuck. I wouldn’t be glad about getting stabbed even for fucking Angelababy. God damn everyone. They’ve all lost their fucking minds._

“Just remember what we said—lay low, go slow, pay attention, and be careful,” continued Meg, all reassurances, then she turned towards the camp and called out much louder for the others. “Yo! Feng and Jane and I are going into a trial! Who’s with us?”

When they’d explained trials, Jane had paid a lot of attention to their instructions, but that had kind of pissed Feng off too. She knew it wasn’t totally her fault, but Jane asked so many questions about how things specifically worked that it had taken at least twice as long as Feng expected, and when she did ask a question and Feng or Meg would answer her, everyone would look at Jane like she was some kind of goddess for having _asked_ how it worked. It was ungodly frustrating. Feng had been kind of a big deal in her own right, before all this, but no one here had ever acted like _she_ mattered just for having a little bit of fame. _It’s ‘cause they’re all fucking Americans,_ thought Feng, _They only know other Americans._

“Me!” came back Claudette’s voice, “And Laurie and Jake—he’s already vanished. Wait.”

Feng could barely hear the _‘Wait’,_ but she’d made the full mental circuit before Claudette had, so she knew that’s what she’d said.

_Oh thank god, we’re getting two trials—Maybe I won’t be with Romero after all._

“I’m up as well,” said Adam, fingers just starting to vanish on his left hand.

“Aren’t there always four?” asked Jane.

“Simultrials—two at once—it happens,” said Meg, shoving a medkit into Jane’s arms and talking super fast, knowing she’d be lucky to get the whole thing out before Jane vanished, “But don’t worry! I’m sure Adam or Feng or I willbetherewhenyou—"

Then Jane was gone.

 _I got like one second myself,_ thought Feng, feeling herself start to vanish completely. _Well, at least Claudette might be there. And Jake never cares about anyone. He’ll probably not be too annoying anyway. Maybe I’ll get Laurie—she’s from the 70s—no way she even knows who this lady is. Wait, that’s seven, who’s the eighth?_

Feng was gone then too, unable to call out and ask before it was too late.

They were up then, in a trial. _Ah fuck,_ thought Feng nervously, all irritation towards Jane Romero’s sudden existence immediately and completely forgotten. It was the place they’d taken to calling the ‘Suffocation Pit’, and it was one of the locations they knew went with the Trapper. Of course, everyone got everyone else’s shit when it came to locations. There was no reason to assume being in Haddonfield meant the Shape, or the Preschool wasn’t going to land you the Nurse, but just the same, it had been almost two days since anyone had had a trial with the Trapper, and she felt deep down like that meant they were about due one. And if they were, that meant she would get taken into it, because she always seemed to get him, like Quentin got the Nightmare and Laurie the Shape. _He fucking hates me,_ thought Feng, spotting a generator behind the building and slipping carefully towards it, eyes on the lookout for bear traps—just in case. Better to know for sure than to wonder. _I bet he requests me special—I bet that’s why people end up where they do so much. Gross. Just because I’m better than you? You’re such a whiny ass little bitch getting butthurt over not having better strategies. Yeah, of course you’re gonna kill me if you spend the whole trial tunneling me. But like, damn, I hope you enjoy everyone else escaping and t-bagging you at the gates, you little fuckwad._

Shit-talking in her head made her feel better, but it didn’t quite make her forgot just how un-fun getting tunneled and killed was. To make things worse, she could tell from the thickness in the air that permission had been given to kill. Which probably meant it really would be the Trapper. It seemed like he never missed a chance to killer her by his own hand.

 _It’s not fair,_ thought Feng, already busily churning away on the gen, _Fuck that guy._

There was motion in the windowsill off to her left, and Feng registered Jake’s jacket and immediately went back to focusing on the generator. _Two of us, good._

It wasn’t until the person was almost on top of her at the generator that she realized it wasn’t Jake, and she startled for a second, letting go of the generator flinging herself backwards, ready to flee—assuming somehow the Legion or the Pig or some shit had killed him and got his jacket, but it was Claudette.

“Sorry—sorry,” whispered Claudette almost inaudibly, putting her hands up.

“What the fuck?” whispered Feng back, feeling a little embarrassed she’d freaked out, but going right back to working on the gen like it was no big deal.

“Right after you guys left, he walked over and said, ‘Jersey isn’t actually gonna make you that much warmer,’ then dropped it on my head,” whispered Claudette, joining her and working on the generator at her side, “And I was really cold.”

“Meg’s gonna be pissed at you,” whispered Feng.

“I know,” said Claudette miserably, twisting two wires together and pinning them in place, “But I’m really cold.”

For a second, they worked in silence, then Claudette caught Feng’s eye and mouthed, _‘What were they like?’_

 _What?_ thought Feng.

 _‘Jane Romero,’_ mouthed Claudette.

 _Oh, damn it,_ thought Feng, irritation back as fast as it had gone, _You too?_

 _‘And Jeff,’_ added Claudette.

 _Well, at least she’s curious about them both,_ conceded Feng mentally. They’re new. Maybe that’s all. She shrugged and mouthed, _‘Normal. Like everyone.’_

Claudette nodded and went back to working.

They were only about two second from lighting the generator when off in the distance they heard a chainsaw revv and a scream.

 _Woman’s voice—not Meg. Could maybe be Laurie, but she never, ever goes down this fast. Maybe it’s Jane,_ thought Feng, almost a little smug at the thought, and decent enough to feel bad after that that had been her first reaction. Even if she was annoying, wanting her to get chainsawed over just being a pain was maybe as dumb as Meg being willing to be stabbed to be near her.

“Did he get her?” whispered Feng, knowing now whichever chainsaw boy it was was far enough away not to be able to hear them whisper, and thank _god_ wasn’t the Trapper, and also that Claudette would be able to sense if Jane or whoever was hurt. _I don’t know the eighth. Could be whoever they are. Let’s see…Deep voice. Means Laurie or Jane, right? Could it be Kate? No. No, it can’t be her. And Nea—oh fuck! Fuck! What if it’s Nea?_

Claudette started to shake her head, and then they heard the chainsaw again—much louder and a little closer this time, and another, longer, awful scream from the same voice, and Claudette winced, hands freezing on the generator.

 _Got her that time,_ thought Feng, peering in the direction the sound had come from. Someone screaming at the sight of a chainsaw without taking a hit meant it had to be Jane. No doubt. Even startled, Laurie was way too good to do that, and Nea was just as leveled. She only screamed if someone hurt her or she was getting fucked really good. Plus, the scream was long enough that time that she was sure it wasn’t Nea’s voice, and 98% certain it hadn’t been Laurie either. Jane for sure.

Almost before the mental calculation was done in her head, their generator lit, and as they stepped up and stole forward to the little shack and the caved in tunnel beneath that often held the basement in trials, but not this time, another generator lit across the area from them. _Good gen rush, whoever. That one might be Laurie._

From about the middle of the trial ground came another scream from the same voice as before, as almost definitely Jane Romero went up on a hook. Feng and Claudette froze by the log walls, listening hard for where the hunter would go next now that he’d hung her.

 _“I’ll go get her,”_ mouthed Claudette, _“You’re faster on generators anyway.”_

Feng nodded and they split off, Claudette slipping towards the danger, and her away from it, towards the large triangle stack of logs off to her left and the generator she could see leaning against the base of it.

She’d barely reached it and started working when she heard a heartbeat and stopped, slinking fast to a chunk of debris nearby to hide the way Nea had taught her, and peering out from between piles of old rusted nothing, trying to figure out if it was the Cannibal or the Hillbilly.

The lumbering walk as the monster came into view was familiar—recognizable. _Oh thank goodness._ It wasn’t that the Hillbilly was a cakewalk, but the Cannibal was one of her least favorites. He squealed like a pig and taunted you with his chainsaw when he killed you, and his stupid prancy walk was gross and creepy, and she hated the way he looked and his nasty, ugly skin mask, and everything about him. _Disgusting,_ thought Feng.

Plus, ever since the night they’d gone to find Dwight and Claudette and had found Dwight with his head bashed in, Feng hadn’t been able to forget what that looked like. It wasn’t something she’d pass on, probably not even to Nea, but it scared her. It was too real. Feng had never seen somebody die for real, or even seen a dead body. Her grandparents were living, and there had been no funerals in Feng Min’s life. But Dwight—the way his skull had looked that night was stuck in her memory now, and it came back at the thought of the Cannibal.

Off where the Hillbilly had come from, Claudette must have gotten Jane off the hook, because Feng heard a loud thud, and the Hillbilly forgot he’d been coming to check her generator at all, and whirled around, revving his chainsaw and taking off towards the hook at a dash.

 _Okay, back in business,_ thought Feng, slipping up to her work. Off in the middle of the area, an aura flickered to life in her vision, and she saw the Hillbilly kicking down a pallet. _Must be chasing someone. Please let it be Jane and not Claudette._

It was petty and she felt a little bad, so she amended the statement in her head a little to make it better. _I mean, it’s only fair. We all died in our first trials. She got off easy. It’s just equivalence._

It was probably Claudette though, because in a few seconds she saw him light up again and shatter another pallet, a good way away from the one he’d hit before now, and there was no way Jane knew the area well enough to run him around that well—no matter how much she’d listened to them.

This ability of Feng’s wasn’t one she’d ever been able to teach anyone else—seeing Killer auras. Like Dwight and Claudette, aura reading had just been something she could do here. Several of them could do that—none of them the same way, though. Unlike other skills, as far as Feng knew, none of them had ever been able to pass on these abilities—although, she knew Claudette had been trying—with Quentin—since they were both sort of search and rescue for the group when they ended up in trials, and it would really help him if he could sense when a teammate got hurt like she could. He’d maybe had it work once, but the person he’d thought he sensed had died right after, so they hadn’t been sure, and all of that had been back before Philip and everything going crazy—back when teaching skills was a priority. A long time, now. Until today, Feng had forgotten about it completely.

Regardless, everyone’s skill worked different. Quentin, Kate, Claudette, Dwight, and Tapp could all read some kind of aura, but she and Laurie were the only two who could see the Killers. Feng had taken to calling the skill “true sight”. Laurie’s didn’t happen all the time, and Feng didn’t totally understand how that worked, but when it did, Laurie could see Killers’ auras the whole trial, which was fucking badass as hell, but while she was using her true sight, they could see her as well if they looked in her direction. She had to be super careful doing it. Feng’s true sight was a little different. The Killers could never see her, which suited her just fine, but she could only see them when they were smashing things. Still, that was like a good sixty percent of the time, because Killers spent fucking all their time breaking her gens and undoing her hard work, or getting mad they couldn’t beat someone at a pallet loop and smashing it in a rage. She usually had a decent idea of where they were.

All of the aura skills were good, although Feng didn’t really feel like she was missing much as far as how _she_ liked to operate in trials went. Well, except maybe for Quentin’s. Quentin’s was the one she would have picked to learn, if she could. He could find the exit. Always. And once he did, everyone could see him—well, all his friends could—not the Killer—but to them he was a glowing beacon of “Come this way to get the fuck out of here,” and it was really useful. Especially since things often got so bad for them right at the end. He could also practically rip doors open.

It was kind of a pride thing—'badge of best job escaping’—to open the gate in a trial, and Feng would never pass on the honor to anyone else (unless it was dangerous for her to be the one on the door), except for Quentin. If he was there, she always let him do it, because when he touched an exit gate it was like he was pumping _it_ full of adrenaline. It was a really, really fucking good skill. She’d never told him, of course, because Feng never told anyone things like that. As she got near to finishing her generator, she thought that maybe she should. Just this once—since he wasn’t doing so hot.

 _It’d probably make him feel better,_ thought Feng, _I bet he’s sick of people looking sad for him._

There was a sound of pain near her then, and Feng looked up and saw Jane Romero slowly inching towards her along the stack of wood.

 _Aww, what the fuck? I didn’t ask for this,_ thought Feng unhappily, _Why didn’t you go find someone else to help you? Now I have to fucking patch you up before I finish my gen, because he’ll come over here and just get you if I light it while you’re here and making so much god damn noise, and if he gets you, Claudette will have to rescue you again, and she won’t be working on gens, and then he’ll get you a third time and you’ll be dead, and once you’re dead he’s going to start tunnel someone else, and I’m someone else. GOD._

She let go of the generator and sighed, motioning Jane to come closer. _I know we told you to take it slow, but god, can you move any slower?_

Jane moved up to her unsteadily, only barely speeding up her pace, whimpering and cradling a chainsaw wound deep in the same shoulder she had a hook hole through.

Somewhere along the way, Jane had dropped the medical kit she’d had—which annoyed Feng as much as it didn’t surprise her at all, and she reached into her purple jacket and took out a needle.

Jane looked from her to the needle and paled.

 _Yup, that’s right—suturing time. It’s gonna fucking hurt,_ thought Feng not particularly maliciously, but not with much sympathy either. She moved behind Jane and slid the needle into her skin, in and out fast, tugging the wound shut with not much care or precision, but a good deal of speed.

Beneath her hands, Jane winced at the rough treatment, and let out pained sounds, jerking at the little stabs.

“Try to be quiet,” whispered Feng sternly, finishing the stitches on the shoulder and moving to close the hook wound.

Jane did—a little bit—but it wasn’t a big improvement. Her makeup was a little smudged around the eyes and some of Jane’s hair was already coming out of the neat little bun she had. _Mine does that too,_ thought Feng automatically, who had often styled her hair the same way, immediately annoyed at herself for thinking about a similarity between them, and being a little rougher with her gauze than she needed to be.

“You’re lucky I was here,” whispered Feng, finishing and turning back to the gen, “Next time, don’t drop your shit.”

“I wasn’t lucky,” said Jane so quietly Feng thought she’d said she wasn’t ‘laughing’ for a second before she got it, “Claudette told me where I could go, and you’d help me.”

She joined Feng on the generator, hands shaky, which Feng felt pretty damn dubious about, because she was 80% of the way there, and she really fucking didn’t want this lady to blow it up when she could light it solo in under ten seconds herself.

“Thank you,” said Jane quietly, and Feng saw her going to grab the wrong wire like she’d known she’d do, and shot out a hand and clamped it around her wrist. Jane looked at her in surprise.

“That one will fucking blow it up,” hissed Feng, “Like we told you— _don’t move the ones that are soldered._ ”

“S-sorry,” breathed out Jane, looking at the wires by her hand again, “I didn’t see that.”

 _Fucking look next time,_ thought Feng, letting go.

Much slower now, Jane moved her hands on the generator—almost like she was afraid to touch it, finally settling after way more time than she needed on what was the correct wire, and wrapping it to its connector at the top of the gen.

 _Well,_ thought Feng, _At least we’re about to light it._

There was the roar of a chainsaw tearing through the night then, and Jane jerked back from the generator in fear, turning to look, and as she did she bumped something and the generator sparked and exploded in Feng’s face, undoing all the good work she’d done in the last fifteen seconds and sending flecks of oil onto her face.

The Hillbilly came tearing towards them, full-throttle, and Feng shot off for the nearest chunk of trash—anything chest high she could use to run around and keep between her and the chainsaw. Jane staggered back in fear and ran for the edge of the pile of logs, away from Feng, and the Hillbilly tore after her. As soon as his back was turned, Feng ducked and slid to a new pile of debris, hoping he’d lose track of her while he chased after Jane.

With nothing to hide behind, Jane fell back from the deformed figure and stared, frozen in fear. Looming over her, he revved his chainsaw and swung. At the last moment, Jane broke her tableau and threw herself to the ground completely, and he missed her, just barely, and she was dragging herself up and running by the time he’d spun around. Angered, the Hillbilly swung after her as she took off and brought down his massive hammer. It slammed into her leg as she ran and she screamed, stumbling a few feet, and then, spotting Feng in her panic, Jane ran for her and her pile of body-blocking junk, full on-desperation in her movements, and before Feng had time to come up with an exit strategy for herself, Jane was stumbling behind the temporary safety of the same pile of trash and the Hillbilly was skidding to a stop across from them.

 _Are you fucking serious,_ thought Feng, sending Jane a disbelieving look, _You brought him to me? Un-fucking-believable._

He came after them, chainsaw whirring as he held it up by his shoulder, readied. Feng dashed around the far end of her pile of junk, hoping to loop him around it for a few seconds and scanning nearby terrain for the best path to run—hopefully vaults, because that would slow him down. Behind her, Jane followed right on her tail, almost on top of her, her own eyes fixed on the Hillbilly and not Feng or a means of escape at all. The Hillbilly changed direction and so did Feng, and Jane after her, circling back the other way.

 _It won’t last long, doing this. I need to find a path. Ah, there we go,_ thought Feng, _I can make it past that barrel, into the little log building above the mine, jump the window, and go around the back if he’s chasing me. Second window, through the middle, then drop the pallet at the doorway, and that should give me time to get to some cover to run around before making a second break for middle area and all the walls over there—I can probably lose him in that. Plus, it’ll eat up time and Claudette and whoever—_

Passively hyper-aware, Feng saw the Hillbilly change direction again and she did too, just as fast, but not looking where she was going, Jane didn’t, and rammed into her chest.

“What are you doing?” hissed Feng.

The Hillbilly shot around the corner, making it around the far side of the debris pile with them with incredible speed, and Feng threw herself to the right and scrambled up, running for the building and leaving Jane to her fate.

The roar of the chainsaw turned into a squeal of metal on metal as behind her, the Hillbilly must have hit something that wasn’t Jane—the barrel probably, and then she heard it revv again, and Jane scream as the teeth ripped into her.

Not knowing if he would hook Jane or come after her first, Feng didn’t look back. She kept going.

Behind her, she could hear Jane’s voice, in pain, and then something else. Clicking.

_Clicking?_

Feng did stop then, realizing what the sound was, and having at least made the edge of the building.

The Hillbilly was standing over Jane, but looking behind himself at Tapp, who was trying to get his attention with a flashlight.

 _Tapp—he’s the eighth,_ thought Feng, a little surprised—not that he’d been the last of the two sets, but that he was trying to annoy the Hillbilly with a flashlight. That was something mostly Meg did. Tapp usually just yelled at a Killer or dropped a pallet on them if he really wanted someone to chase him instead of one of the others—kind of like David. The flashlight was quieter—a less sure way to get attention—but also, it was a more…dedicated way. Feng had seen this go down with Meg. There were several Killers she did this to regularly; it was a way of taunting them. Meg tended to carry really, really good flashlights, and shine them in Killer’s faces even when she didn’t need to to help her run or anything—just to piss them off. It worked. As anyone who’d ever had a bright light shined in their eyes at close quarters would know, it’s not super fun to lose your vision for a couple of seconds, and it kind of stings.  Meg used to especially do it to Philip—they’d figured out a long time back that you could actually hurt him if you shined a light on him while he was invisible, and they’d all been pretty fed up about being hurt all the time and ready to ride that petty little minor-payback horse into the sunset. It was his bad luck he’d been the only Killer they could do that to, because there had been a couple of weeks where everyone but like Claudette was packing flashlights and going rabbit hunting. It had ended though, because one, they’d started to run out of flashlights, two, he’d started adapting to being bullied and it got less and less effective, and three, they’d realized pissing off someone who was trying to kill you had some pretty big downsides.

Still, it wasn’t a way she’d seen Tapp try to draw off a Killer before. The Hillbilly had had his fair share of abuse from Meg this way though, so he recognized the act instantly and turned on Tapp. The chainsaw roared to life, and Tapp jumped out of the way as the lumbering figure tore after him, dodging easily and back up again as the Hillbilly overswung, clicking the flashlight at him just to be a prick.

 _Wow, he nailed Meg’s technique,_ thought Feng, _I bet Hillbilly chases him and forgets about Jane completely. I should quit watching, though. I need to go fix a gen._

She turned to go, disappearing into the building as she heard the chainsaw start and stop several times and the click of a light behind her, and then she was out in the field on the side of the building, further away but able to see them again. One more generator over here on this side of the trial area, not including the one she had almost finished. _We should save that for endgame, though,_ thought Feng, _So we don’t end up with three gens all right beside each other. I wonder if I can go clear around and fix the one I was almost done with while he’s distracted?_

It was possible, depending on which way Tapp ran. She started to slink closer, since she was going to have to go in that general direction to get out of here to any gen to finish anyway. The trial area around the caved in mine was built like a squished capitol I—two long areas at each end, smaller bottleneck right in the middle.

As Feng made her way to the generator, she looked over back by her clumps of trash to see how it was going with the others. The answer appeared to be that the Hillbilly was getting tired of Tapp’s shit. They were both still over there, but he had his back turned to Tapp now, and was going over towards Jane.

 _Oof, not her day,_ thought Feng, moving a little faster since the Hillbilly’s back was to her too now.

Not ready to just give up, Tapp booked it after the Hillbilly, flashlight still flicking on and off, and he called out something too this time—Feng couldn’t tell what, but from his tone it was probably an insult.

The Hillbilly whirled on him and swung the hammer, and Tapp jumped back. About done with this, the Hillbilly gave up on him again and bent down to grab Jane.

 _He’s not gonna do it,_ thought Feng, watching, _He’s got better things to do than chase you all day. You better book, because he’s gonna hunt way better when he’s not distracted checking to see if someone’s sneaking over to help Jane while he follows you._

Tapp didn’t run away, though. He ran in front of the Hillbilly and tried to blind him. The Hillbilly stopped reaching for Jane and swung at him, and Feng knew it was a bad shot—a slow swing—but Tapp didn’t dodge it. He took the hit in his side and stumbled back with probably some broken ribs.

 _Shit, you let him tag you? To sell the chase?_ thought Feng, reaching the generator that was at least still almost seventy percent done, and beginning to work on it again, _For her? Stupid. Even if you get him away and I go over there and get her up, which will suck because then I’ll have to leave my nice gen without fixing it again, he’ll just come back and get her anyway. She sucks at running away and hiding._

 The Hillbilly went for Jane again, even with Tapp injured. He turned away from Tapp and picked her up.

 _Them’s the breaks,_ thought Feng, one of Nea’s phrases being the first to come to mind, _This is what happens to all of you when you play so altruistically. You get fucked._

She didn’t really mean that in a hostile way, just a frustrated one. If they’d just learn to vary their strategies a little, it really would mean less deaths overall.

Feng lit her generator.

Tapp came after the Hillbilly, trying to blind him, and the Hillbilly turned away from him, marching towards a nearby hook. He was almost on top of it, Tapp trying to outrun him and get in front of him again for one last chance at helping Jane, when without any tell Feng could see, the monster swung around and rammed the hammer at Tapp, guessing where he’d be and guessing right. Tapp almost made it out of the way, but the blow caught him in the jaw and knocked him back onto the ground. The Hillbilly dropped Jane, who cried out as she hit the ground, and picked up Tapp instead, ramming him through the hook as he struggled and screamed.

 _Fuck,_ thought Feng, wincing sympathetically and creeping a little closer to be behind one of the piles of junk, knowing wherever Claudette was, she had to be close to finishing her own generator, and they’d lose time if Claudette ditched it get Tapp. Since Feng was already right there, it was probably going to be on her to get Tapp down once the Hillbilly took Jane somewhere else to hook her.

She could see Jane on the ground, staring up at Tapp in horror as he hung there, and then trying to crawl away from the Hillbilly in fear as he walked towards her.

 _No, don’t crawl away, stupid,_ thought Feng in frustration, _You’re crawling towards one of the other hooks. He’s got to carry you pretty far now because of where he hooked Tapp, and you might be able to break free._

Why had he done that? He wasn’t in a great spot—Jane had at least a sixty-forty chance of breaking free from him, if she was any good at struggling. And he’d actually been employing what looked at least a little like strategy to Feng right before that—which was surprising, because she’d never really pegged the Hillbilly for one of the more intelligent killers. _Are you just being dumb because you’re pissed?_

Jane kept trying to crawl away, and the Hillbilly walked up to her and placed his spiked boot in the small of her back, holding her down, and then Feng remembered.

_Oh. That’s why._

As the spikes dug into her back, Jane cried out and tried to twist free. Feng didn’t really want to watch, but she did. It somehow seemed sort of worse to look away.

The Hillbilly turned on the chainsaw, and Jane screamed. A real scream—not the kind that came from pain, but from fear—big fear. Feng wondered if she knew what was going to happen, or if she was just afraid of being hurt.

He raised the chainsaw over his head and Feng winced, anticipating the blow. It came, the saw slowly tearing through Jane’s back as he dragged it through her with force, cutting her in half. She was screaming the whole time—Feng had always thought it had to kill people faster than that, and that she must just remember the versions in her head from times it had happened to her as so long because time had slowed down, but she’d remembered it correctly. It took a few seconds of being ripped apart before the person was dead—until the saw was clean through.

 _Well, at least it was short,_ thought Feng, watching the Hillbilly as he wiped blood spatter off his mouth, eyes still on the corpse in front of him. _Go on, ugly. Get the fuck out of here or someone else’ll get a gen done._

His head shot up like he’d heard something, and for a second Feng thought she’d accidentally said it out loud somehow, and he was looking at her, but he revved the chainsaw and took off past her with it, running deep into the trial area beyond.

 _Must be Claudette about to light one,_ thought Feng, standing up and sprinting for Tapp. Perfect time for an unhook—he’d be distracted. No matter who he went after, they’d either get the gen free, or time to heal the injured person.

She snagged Tapp off the hook—which had always been just a little tricky for her, because Feng was pretty short, but she’d gotten it down by now, and he gave her a nod, then sent Jane’s mangled corpse an unhappy look.

“You gotta be careful,” whispered Feng, “We don’t know how many of us he might kill—you could be next. Don’t get hit again.”

Off in the distance, there was a scream, and Feng recognized Claudette’s voice.

_Damn it. She didn’t quite get the gen, either._

“It’s okay,” whispered Tapp, motioning for her to go, “I can patch myself up and get her. You see if you can find the gen she was on and get it done? One in the shack I left partway too.”

Feng nodded and took off, leaving him to staunch the bleeding alone. She slowed her pace once she reached the walls in the middle of the trial area, trying to weave through them low to the ground, listening for the heartbeat. A little ahead and to her left, she could just make out the lights of a generator and hear one close to completion churning away.

 _Guess wherever he got her, she made sure to run away from the gen—smart girl,_ thought Feng, stealing over to it. It had been kicked, but was still maybe 75% of the way done. Not bad—not a whole lot left. _Okay, let’s get it done._

She cast careful looks around herself, ears straining for any sound, and got to work.

Feng didn’t see him coming. She had been being careful, because when you got close to completing a generator, sometimes the Hillbilly’s terror aura would vanish—she didn’t know why or how, but it had fucked her over more than once. So she’d been watching. And still, somehow, she didn’t see him until he was right on top of her and she heard a chainsaw coming at her fast. Feng let go of the gen and took off, and she turned around the bush she’d been behind with the generator and he was right there—somehow coming from the far side, by the wall, where he had no reason to be.

 _Fuck!_ She backpedaled, falling over the generator, which saved her, watching as the saw blades dug into the steel of the machine instead of her chest. She was up again in a second, him right behind, chainsaw screaming after her, and there was nowhere good to run—no easy cover for about fifteen feet. _Fuck! No wonder he got Claudette! This is a terrible spot!_

She looked behind her as he rushed her and threw herself onto the ground and rolled, trying to avoid the saw. Feng managed it, but he turned and spun on her again before she’d had time to do anything besides make it back to her feet, and this time when the chainsaw came at her and she fell back, it wasn’t fast enough. The blades dug into her stomach and she screamed, falling onto the ground and writhing in pain as he came to a stop above her.

There were rough hands on her then, and she was being lifted into the air. Feng fought him, ramming her elbows into the back of his neck, but he brought her down on a hook and she felt the awful tearing sensation shoot through her as the chunk of metal embedded itself in her shoulder. She screamed as the shock ran through her, then hung there, trying to refocus and calm down. By the time the pain had become manageable, the Hillbilly was already tearing off, almost out of sight.

 _I hope he doesn’t get them,_ thought Feng, and then, _Well. At least he didn’t kick my generator._

Three of them alive, three generators to go, all been hooked once. Not great odds, but not impossible, and if they could light this one it would just be two to go.

 _Come on,_ thought Feng hopefully, _Come get me, one of you._

Claudette did, maybe twenty seconds later, creeping up through the brush, still injured herself. She looked around carefully and then grabbed Feng free. It hurt almost as much to be pulled free of a hook as it did to get run through one, but Feng took it, relieved to be back on the ground. And then they heard the chainsaw coming.

 _‘Hide,’_ mouthed Claudette, motioning to some rocks nearby, _‘I’ll lead him off.’_

 _But you’re still hurt and won’t do much better yourself,_ thought Feng, doing it anyway, _I guess she has a plan._

The Hillbilly came tearing through the grass, and as soon as she could see him, Claudette ran towards the shack, weaving through trees and brush and debris on the ground to try and make it hard for him to go after her. He didn’t even look in Feng’s direction—just took off after his fleeing prey, and they were both gone.

Feng left the rocks and booked it for the gen—time to heal herself later—and got to work. It took maybe six seconds, and then the generator was lit. Feng let out a sigh of relief and stole back towards the rows of walls in the middle of the trial area to try and find somewhere safe to heal up. There was a pretty decent spot, a few close walls not by a generator that provided a good blindspot, and she crouched there, running her needle through her own skin and trying not to think about how much it hurt to do this. She was about halfway done when she heard Claudette scream. And then again, louder and long. She paused for a moment, listening as the sound faded.

_Two of us._

It was quiet for a few seconds, and somehow that was worse.

_Okay, okay, just think. Tapp said he had the one in the shack about halfway, and that’s probably where he’ll go—right? To finish his work. Only two gens left. You left yourself one back where you started, for endgame, and that’s about as far from the shack as possible. Go there, and work on it. Maybe you all can still make it. If Tapp’s close, he can light his and get chased while you finish the last one, and then…_

Well, probably then she would get a door while he got mori’d, but he was a good runner—it was possible they’d both make it out.

 _Gotta try,_ thought Feng, adjusting her jacket and slinking carefully back towards the generator she’d left behind through cover, listening for the terror aura.

Wherever the Hillbilly had gone, he wasn’t near her. He was probably not chasing anyone either, because she wasn’t seeing him kick things. She reached the edge of the middle area and the walls and saw the generator, waiting, untouched by some trees and rocks, pretty close itself to one of the exits.

_Okay, you got this._

Feng started for it, watching her back very, very carefully. No sound, no movement. She reached the gen unharmed and started to work, very glad she’d always been able to work so much quieter than the rest of them. It made risky endgame moves like this a little bit more doable. _Come on, Tapp,_ thought Feng, watching the row of walls for any sign of the Hillbilly, _Light it._

The silence was starting to fray her nerves, and then she heard a chainsaw far off. The generator in the shack lit.

 _YES! Yes! He got it! Go Tapp!_ thought Feng excitedly, her own efforts redoubled on the generator with a little hope now they might actually make it, and the assurance the Hillbilly would be chasing someone else. She saw his aura light up near the shack, kicking in a pallet

_Come on, Tapp, just don’t get caught. We can do it._

Her true sight lit up again, and then again, like a little dotted line right to left on the far side of the trial area as Tapp ran him around, and she hurried to get the generator finished. She was going as fast as she could, and getting close. It was so close—within reach. For a couple of seconds then, there were no glimpses of the Hillbilly from her true sight—just the sound of the chainsaw, and it was hard to tell exactly where they were from that—the thing echoed so much—but still far away, at least. And Feng was almost there. _Come on, Tapp, just a little longer._

She saw him coming this time, even though she didn’t hear him, startling and letting go of the generator as her eyes picked up the chainsaw wielding thing speeding after her. _Shit._

Feng ducked behind the rock, and the saw cut into the tree where she’d been. _Fuck, fuck, fuck—gotta lead him away from the gen,_ thought Feng frantically, turning and dashing past some rocks and dropping a pallet to buy herself a little time. He just carved straight through it with his saw. _Gross; show-off,_ thought Feng, vaulting through one of the windows into the low log building. Ahead of her, she saw the closed hatch and stored that away for further use, banking left and leaping through a second window. The Hillbilly kept on her heels—fast, and he almost caught her with the hammer as she leapt the windowsill.

 _Missed me, bitch,_ thought Feng, running for the front of the building and dropping another pallet behind her. He ignored her pallet this time, circling around to try and cut her off, and Feng spun on a dime and leapt back over it, hearing the chainsaw roar to life behind her. She was so sure she’d made the jump, but the chainsaw dug into her shoulder as she slid over the pallet, carving through her muscle and tearing apart the wood behind her into dust and nothing.

She cried out and hit the ground beneath the saw with a thud, pain running along her shoulder and down her arm as she looked up at the horrible thing above her. _No,_ thought Feng, watching him walk towards her, _I was so close._ She closed her eyes and braced, trying as best she could to steel herself for the sensation of a chainsaw cutting her in half.

“Hey!”

Tapp’s voice. She opened her eyes again and saw him standing just past her, out of breath in the doorway to the log building.

“Over here, motherfucker!” shouted Tapp, flicking his flashlight on and off at the thing looming over her.

 _It’s not going to work,_ thought Feng, afraid to believe it might and be let down if it failed, _He knows you’re hard to chase._

The Hillbilly was practically on top of her now, revving his chainsaw.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck,_ thought Feng, squeezing her eyes shut.

There was a _thunk,_ and Feng opened her eyes again just in time to see Tapp’s flashlight bounce and hit the ground beside her, vaporizing into nothing as it reached the ground. The Hillbilly screamed in indignation.

 _Did he just throw that at him?_ thought Feng in wonder, looking up as the Hillbilly went tearing after Tapp, back into the house. Tapp made it all the way though and out the back, the Hillbilly right behind. _Why—why would you do that?_ thought Feng, _You know there’s no way he won’t get you. Now we’ll just both die._

It was a relief, though, the few seconds of reprieve she’d been given, and Feng remembered the hatch then. It was close. Maybe fifteen feet, just inside the building, along the floor.

_Maybe—maybe I can…_

There was a shout of pain. Tapp. _Shit, I won’t make it,_ thought Feng, dragging herself arm over arm anyway, _They’re too close. He’ll come back for me first, so he doesn’t lose me._

She saw the Hillbilly’s aura light up to kick a pallet then, buying her a few seconds. Then the chainsaw flickered to life and the awful sound of it filled the night and screams came with it.

He hadn’t come back for her first—he’d been angry, and wanted to finish it. Feng reached the hatch as she heard Tapp’s voice fade out. There was a moment of no sound at all, and then the faint thudding of a terror aura approaching her, and then the hatch opened for her, making the sound she had come to love most in the world—like wind and light. Feng dragged herself inside, and the door shut behind her. Safe.

 

* * *

 

 

It didn’t take Feng long to get back to camp. She was almost for certain the one who knew the tunnels best. She’d probably made it out more hatches than exit doors.

When she reached the rungs, headed up, and flung open the door, there was no one waiting. The others who’d been gone still weren’t back—Laurie, Jake, Meg, and Adam. Everyone else was gathered around Jane Romero by the campfire, talking to her sympathetically as she drank a tin of coffee and ate one of Claudette’s cookies.

Immediately, the irritation was back.

Feng climbed out onto the ground, and the others turned to look then, most waving or nodding in greeting.  Tapp called over, “Made it out? Good going.”

That was nice, and she did feel bad he’d died like that, so Feng didn’t mind that he went right back to whatever he’d been saying to the others with Jane, but it did kind of piss her off that no one came over to actually greet her. Well, ‘everyone’ wasn’t exactly accurate, now that she was looking—Nea and Claudette were nowhere to be seen.

Almost as she was thinking that, Quentin got up and walked over. She hadn’t really moved from the hatch after climbing out—just sort of sat there, so he sat down across from her and offered her a fist bump. “Hatch escape again?”

She accepted the fist bump, feeling a little better. “Yeah.”

“Nice,” he replied, smiling, “You’re really good at those. You’re sure you can’t sense the hatch?”

“God, I _wish,_ ” said Feng, “Can you imagine how useful keys would be?”

He nodded. “I feel a little cheated that I can always find the exits, but like, never the hatch.”

“Where are Nea and Claudette?” asked Feng, who’d been hoping to talk to Nea.

“Oh—they went off into the woods about something secretive. I don’t know what,” he answered. “Nea went over to talk to her like as soon as she got back, and they’re still gone.”

 _Oooooh, good girl,_ thought Feng, that immediately making sense, _She’s on task. Divide and conquer._

“What are you two doing?” asked Quentin, giving her a funny look.

“What?” said Feng.

“I don’t know,” he replied, “You just looked really suspicious when I said that—not like you were _feeling_ suspicious, but like you’re up to something.”

“I can’t tell you,” said Feng.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Secret,” she replied.

He sighed and accepted that, but did look a little disappointed.

“Look,” said Feng, relenting just a smidge, “I won’t tell you, but I’ll let you get ahead.”

“Get ahead?” he asked.

“You should make sure to set aside some cool stuff from your collections and save it this week,” said Feng, “Just trust me.”

“Uh, okay,” said Quentin, trying to figure that out, “Thanks for the heads-up, I think.”

“They okay?” asked Feng, indicating Tapp and Jane, because she didn’t _really_ want to go talk to them herself because she might snap at Jane if she did, but was curious to know since she was feeling kind of guilty that Tapp had thrown himself in front of a bus for her.

“Yeah, they’re good,” replied Quentin, “Well—I mean. Tapp’s fine. Jane just died for the first time ever, and she got mori’d before even getting sacrificed. And by a chainsaw. It’s not fun, or easy. But I think she’ll be okay after a while. Just needs some time to get used to this, like all of us did. She seems tough. It’s just a hard thing to go through.”

“Cool,” said Feng, not wanting to hear more about it, “I’m gonna go work on things, then. Tell Nea I’m by the mural when she gets back.”

He nodded, and she left.

 

* * *

 

 

It was a couple of hours before Feng got pulled into another trial. She spent most of it working alone by the Shining Lion mural they’d made, although Nea eventually showed up and helped—way later than she’d been expecting, which Nea explained was because she’d stopped to talk a little with the others. Apparently, Jane seemed to be having a rough time after dying, and she’d wanted to try and cheer her up, which had somehow taken like an hour and a half.

It annoyed Feng. Not just that Nea specifically had sort of blown her off, or that Jane was here now, and everyone was paying so much attention to her, but more because she’d been in the middle of something.  Something that had been important, and a big deal, and fun, and now even Nea was distracted.

 _Why is she such a fucking big deal?_ thought Feng, _I don’t get it. She’s not even a movie star._

To make her already fairly rotten day even worse, when Feng did get drawn for a trial, she’d heard someone calling out from the campfire to say Jane was going again, which meant Feng was, again, going to be stuck with the most useless person possible. Dwight could barely walk and Quentin couldn’t run, but she’d gladly have taken either of them over her. Nea had gone with her too, though, this time. That had seemed at first like a turn for the better, until she’d materialized on the MacMillian Estate in front of the old ironworks and seen a closed beartrap at her feet.

Which meant that it was worse. It was going to be so much worse that Nea was here. In fact, this was basically the only trial situation that could have instantly made Feng regret the fact they were there together.

 _Fuck!_ thought Feng angrily, _Who did I piss off to get this much bad luck! Why me?_

It was bad. It was really, really bad.

A few weeks ago, Feng had been in a trial with the Trapper, and Nea had gotten her down from a hook and kissed her, and the Trapper had seen it. It wasn’t something Feng had actually thought to be careful about _not_ doing in a trial. It hadn’t entered her mind how bad things could get.

Whatever else that piece of shit was, though, he wasn’t stupid. Feng had been getting a little better at trials with him—out of sheer necessity, the way Laurie and Quentin had as well—learning his strategies, avoiding his traps. She’d lived through three out of her last six trials with him, which for her was good, and two had been back-to-back. Feng had been able to tell it was really pissing him off. Even with him tunneling her relentlessly, she was starting to make it sometimes, and if he went after her really, really hard, it gave everyone else time to get stuff done safely.

But Nea. Nea wasn’t used to being tunneled by him at all.

It wasn’t fair. It—it wasn’t even really like Feng had gotten a strategy good enough to handle being tunneled—she was just barely breaking even sometimes. But he’d been annoyed by it.

He’d gotten Nea that trial and put her in a bad spot, up on a hill, beartraps all over the place. Feng had managed to get past them, but she’d had to go slow and he’d been watching—waiting—knowing she’d go, and he’d hit her and gotten Nea back and put her right back up there, and Feng had had to watch her die on the hook while he cut her up, daring her to come back out of hiding and try again to get her, past him and the beartraps mountain of beartraps, with blood oozing down her shoulder.

There hadn’t been a way to do it. Feng had known, with absolute certainty. And she’d known Nea knew too. Her girlfriend had looked towards her hiding place and smiled and killed herself—given up and let the Entity take her, so Feng wouldn’t have to be the one who made the decision to let her die.

He’d found Feng anyway, though. Nea sacrificing herself hadn’t mattered. Maybe he’d smelled the blood on her. And once he had her, he’d mori’d her. But that hadn’t been as bad as watching him go after Nea, and she’d known with absolute certainty that this was going to be a thing now. If he couldn’t get her, he’d get Nea to get at her and try to lure her out, or punish her. And it wasn’t fair. It already hadn’t been, and now it was worse.

Maybe they’d sort of been a friends with benefits thing when this had all started, Nea and her, and sure it wasn’t like she was marrying the girl, but she was still her girlfriend. Feng was supposed to try and help her in trials, even if she left everyone else, and she couldn’t. Like always, having connections with other people just was something that would get used against you. And it was getting Nea hurt too.

 _Fuck him,_ thought Feng, working on the generator inside the ironworks. _We just work really, really fast, and we’ll get out, and—_

Off in the distance, she heard Jane scream.

_Oh god fucking damn it, I forgot she was here. We’ll never make it when we’re basically just a three-man team. Even if I’ve got Jake and Nea._

Feng stayed on the generator, ignoring the sounds out in the night, trying to go faster than was humanly possible, even for her.

“Hey, hey, hey.”

The low whisper was Nea, and Feng grinned on impulse, relieved by the presence she hadn’t sensed coming, even if this was a bad trial for her to be in. Somewhere in the distance, Jane went up on a hook.

Nea winced. “That’s rough,” she whispered, “It took like six seconds for her to go down. Man, I remember how it was at the start. Do you know who the Killer is?”

“Trapper,” answered Feng, expression hardened.

She saw the realization hit Nea, and she swallowed. “Ah.”

“Let Jake get her,” whispered Feng, “We need to finish this. We’re pretty far—he’s probably closer, anyway, and if we all go it’ll waste time.”

Nea nodded, staying on the generator, which was pretty near to finished between the two of them now. In the distance, they heard a terror aura begin to build. The Trapper’s aura was fucking _huge_ and Feng hated it, because it made it so hard to know if he was actually coming for you. To be honest, she preferred the sneaky ones, like the Wraith and the Pig—at least you didn’t have to work on generators while listening to sounds hardwired in your brain to kick in your flight instinct.

“Go ahead and find a new gen,” whispered Feng, “I’ll finish so we don’t both have to split from here when it lights. Easier for one of us to lose him than two.”

“Then I’ll stay,” replied Nea quietly, “I’m the better sneaker.”

“He’ll get closer before it lights if you stay,” said Feng, “I’m faster on gens.”

Nea made an unhappy sound in her throat. “Pick a number between one and ten.”

They’d taken to doing this any time they disagreed in trials. Before that, and outside trials still, it was rock, paper, scissors, but that just wasn’t practical in a trial where your hands were always busy. Feng loved it, because unlike rock, paper, scissors, which she was sure Nea was somehow cheating at, this was game she always won.

“Eight,” said Feng, because Nea always seemed to pick six, eight, or nine when they did this. “You.”

“Seven,” said Nea, hoping to trip her up. They’d done this a lot of times.

“Mine was two,” said Feng, who’d anticipated that, “Yours?”

“Fuck,” muttered Nea, letting go of the gen, “Nine.”

“Don’t go through windows,” whispered Feng after her as she slunk off, “He likes to trap them.”

Then she was alone. The heartbeat was getting closer—at least she thought it was. Somewhere off in the yard, a generator lit up—pretty far from where Jane had been hooked.

 _Jake must have a toolbox,_ thought Feng a little jealously, because she’d had help and he’d still beaten her, and then she lit her own.

 _He’ll probably go for Jane now, right?_ thought Feng, running and then creeping up the stairs in the building, heading for the second floor and the vantage point it offered, wanting to know for sure where the Trapper had gone. She hoped so. Feng really didn’t want to have to be the one to save Jane.

From the second story, Feng could see Nea by a generator near the side of the building, but she wasn’t working on it. Probably having also realized Jake was a long way from Jane, Nea was leaving the generator, low to the ground, heading to do the rescue herself.

 _No!_ thought Feng in dismay, _No, stupid! Don’t go there—he’s trapped over there, and he knows we just lit two gens and someone will be going! Don’t go help her. Let Jake do it. Jake can break traps._

Out of her field of view, there was the _crack_ of a beartrap breaking, and then a cry from Jane, which Feng had to assume meant Jake had gone and gotten her down.

 _See?_ she thought with relief, looking down at Nea, _She’s fine. He got her. Go back to the generator._

Nea started to, and Feng turned her attention away from that, still looking for the Trapper, whose terror aura was still all over her like he was on her ass, but there was absolutely no sign of him. And then, there he was. Rounding the back of the building, towards the gen Nea was going back to.

 _No,_ though Feng, _Oh no—oh no. I should warn her! But—but he’ll hear me and know she’s there! She’s smart, maybe—_

Nea couldn’t see him coming though, through the walls between them, Feng choked down the urge to scream.

_Don’t do it. Don’t do it. If you scream, he’ll chase her for sure. If you don’t and he sees her, she’ll still get a chance to run.  If you don’t scream, he might miss her. Just trust her._

The Trapper reached the generator and turned to kick it just as Nea slipped up past a wall behind him. Seeing him, she immediately shot back and pressed her back against one of the little brick walls, holding her breath. The Trapper turned from the generator and looked around, walking towards where Nea was hiding, and as he came she crept counter clockwise, rounding the far end of the corner just as he turned to look at nothing. Irritated, the Trapper set a beartrap in the weeds where Nea had been moments earlier, and then moved on, one last suspicious look at the generator.

Feng turned to watch Nea for a moment, and her girlfriend took a breath and waited a few seconds, and then terror aura faded. As the sound vanished, Nea moved out of hiding and went back to her generator and began to work.

 _That’s weird,_ thought Feng, _He’s got such a big terror aura. How fast was he walking?_

She looked back to where he’d been the last time she’d seen him and her heart lurched in her chest. He was still there, standing behind a tree, perfectly still.

_FUCK._

It was an old, old skill—one none of the Killers had used in a long time as far as she knew, but she remembered it from her early days here. He’d turned his aura off.

 _He was waiting for you,_ realized Feng in a panic, _He knew Jake would be the only one breaking his traps and Jane was already hooked, so it was one of us two here on the gen. Fuck!_

Nea didn’t see him, completely out of her line of sight.

Feng ran to the edge of the window and screamed. “Nea! Run! He shut off the aura!”

At the sound of her voice, Nea didn’t even look to see where she was. She just broke into a full sprint, shooting off like a rocket towards the back of the building, not even a glance behind her.

The Trapper did look up at her, though, and he grinned when he saw her—she was sure of it, even though there was no way she could know it through the mask. He didn’t chase Nea. He went inside the building.

 _Fuck me! He’s going to kill me!_ thought Feng frantically, running for the outside staircase. She caught a rail as she turned a corner and used her momentum to rush down, taking the stairs as fast as she could. She heard a scream that she knew was Nea somewhere off on the far side of the building and the snap of a beartrap.

 _Fuck! Fuck!_ thought Feng, reaching the ground. _I should go help her! If I make if first, she might be okay, but if he gets her on a hook, I’ll never get her back!_

She tore through the building, trying to see where the Trapper had gone and failing, and in her rush somehow missed a beartrap.

It was such a stupid place to put one she hadn’t even thought to look. She was used to avoiding the smart places to put traps—vaults, and pallets, and doorways, but this was just the middle of the floor—how could he have ever had any assurance someone would step there at all?

The teeth slammed into her calf and dug in, ripping through her muscle and leaking blood, and she screamed, falling to her knees. Through the pain and fear, Feng sensed movement above her then, and she looked up, and there was the Trapper, grinning down at her from the railing of the second story, and then she knew why the trap had been there. There was a space up there on the catwalk where the railing had broken free. If you were in a tight spot going to take the freefall to the floor in your desperation to avoid someone after you, that’s where you’d do it, and you’d land right where she was now. It made her so furious.

Feng hated to lose, and she especially hated to lose to him, but most of all she hated to lose over something stupid—over being dumb, and careless. Something entirely avoidable.

It hurt so, so much, and she could hear him coming for her, not really in a rush.

_Fuck you—you want to be dramatic about this, fine! Let’s see if I can’t get the beartrap off me while you power walk back, you little shitbitch._

Feng tore at it with her fingers, trying desperately to pry it free. It was so hard to get a grip on it—the teeth were razor sharp and the blood made not sliding your hand around on the metal impossible. But she tried. Her fingers found the release and kept slipping off it, slicker than usual—so fucking hard to grab. Finally, she got it, and Feng prided the teeth with her fingers, watching with a sick feeling as the sharpened triangles of metal came out of her, leaving deep holes. She felt woozy immediately, and almost lost her grip on the trap. Lightheaded and faint, like she might puke. The blood came pouring out of her leg fast—way faster than normal. The trap was sharper than normal too—it had bit deeper, and it was cutting into her fingers.

The Trapper had to be able to see that she was almost free, but he was still taking the stairs, like he didn’t care at all.

 _He…something’s wrong,_ thought Feng faintly, and she tugged her leg free and fell back, hearing the trap snap closed behind her. Leg throbbing with pain, Feng did her best to drag herself up, but it hurt overwhelmingly, and her leg immediately gave out and she fell back with a cry.

 _I’m going to bleed to death,_ thought Feng, watching him come towards her. _He cheated._

He’d done this before, but not often. Sharpened the traps like this, so they almost went clean through a leg. _Did I do something to piss him off especially last time,_ thought Feng weakly, trying to remember.

The Trapper bent down over her and she blanched, turning away. She could see the grin through the mask for real this time. Then his hands were on her and she was being slung up over his shoulder.

Feng struggled as best she could, but it was useless—there was a hook inside the foundry, way too close, and she wasn’t strong enough to put in her usual effort anyway. He dragged her through the hook with pleasure, then went over and picked up the trap she’d stepped in and brought it over, setting it and two others in a semicircle around her so it wouldn’t really be possible for someone to get her down without disarming one, even if they could step past them to touch her.

 _At least Nea must have made it,_ thought Feng bitterly, still furious with herself for making a mistake like that, and glad no one but him had seen it—really wishing he hadn’t. If Nea wasn’t free, he would have gone after her, Feng was pretty sure, so probably Jake had gotten her out.

 _Only two hooks so far, you gross asshole,_ thought Feng as she watched the Trapper disappear, _Good luck getting us all._

She was alone then, in the ironworks. The faint thud of the Trapper’s terror aura was still over her, but aside from that it was quiet. Nothing but the pain of the hook and the injury in her leg, and the constant reminder of them both that came from the slow drip of blood off the base of her bad leg as it hit the ground and pooled.

Far off and to her right, a third generator went on.

 _Is nobody going to come get me?_ thought Feng, a little bit worried then. Two generators to go wasn’t bad, but if she were here much longer, she’d be fighting the Entity. Her true sight lit up, and she saw the Trapper kicking a pallet a long way off. Chasing someone.

There was the sound of quiet footsteps, and about fifteen feet off, Jake appeared in the doorway.

He gave her a nod and surveyed the traps with a grimace, then slowly set to work on the middle one.

 _‘Don’t worry,’_ he mouthed, looking up, ‘ _Nea’s running decoy.’_

He gave the trap a wary and unhappy look, then cracked the spring with a bolt cutter. The trap snapped, and Jake moved out of the way fast, but the second spring exploded from the tension and shot out, cutting into Jakes’ hand, deep, and he sucked in a sharp breath, but ignored the injury in favor of quickly snagging Feng free of the hook.

“Careful,” he whispered, “He’s fucked with the traps so you’re going to get hurt disarming them.”

Feng had thought that might be the case, because Jake’s arm had already been bandaged before he’d sprung the trap, and he’d been looking at it like he knew it was going to bite him. The asshole was really pulling out all the stops today.

Back on the other side of the trial grounds, the Trapper must have stopped chasing Nea, because Feng could hear his aura building, and fast. Coming for her.

“Find somewhere to hide,” hissed Jake, taking off for the far end of the building.

Much more careful this time, Feng slipped out the door Jake had entered and moved low and slow past walls, the way Nea had taught her, until she reached a little hollow area in one of the walls near a lit generator.

It seemed okay, and her leg and chest really hurt, so Feng pulled out her thread and shakily started to try and patch herself up, doing her best.

“Holding up okay?” came Nea’s voice quietly from behind her, and Feng jumped.

“How did you find me?” she whispered, moving so there was room for both of them, peeking out to make sure the Trapper hadn’t come with her.

“Followed my heart,” grinned Nea, taking a knee and pulling a roll of gauze out of the medkit she was holding.

Feng snorted.

“I just though, ‘where is the smart place to hide,’ and went there,” whispered Nea, gently bandaging her torn up calf, “Second place I checked, I admit, but, uh, you can applaud.”

Feng smirked at her and then leaned over again to look for the Trapper. She saw him this time, not too far off, checking by walls. She held a finger up to her lips, and Nea nodded.

‘ _Did you find that?’_ mouthed Feng, looking at the medkit as Nea wrapped her leg.

‘ _Jane,’_ mouthed back Nea, ‘ _Lent it to me.’_

The leg still hurt, but it helped a lot not to be able to see it, and Feng took it well. ‘ _Two more,’_ mouthed Feng, checking the Trapper’s location and watching him disappear into the building, ‘ _We can do this.’_

Nea smiled at her and nodded, tying the bandage off.

They did their best. As soon as she could walk, Feng and Nea slipped off together and found a generator, staying on it and working in the back of the trial area as a team.

While they worked, Jane went up on a hook again after barely any time had passed at all, but Jake must have done the rescue, because someone got her free and neither of them went—they’d been clear across the trial area again, and Feng had convinced Nea to stay. Then Jake had gone down. That was okay, because he hadn’t been on a hook at all before, but he went down near the shack, and the Trapper took him to the basement.

That. That was a death sentence. You didn’t get out of the basement in a Trapper trial. He would guard the thing so well, make the stairs so impassible. The only possible way to live through it was if he happened not to have time to set traps, or to be out of them because Jake had broken them or something, or someone was really, really pissing him off in the furthest corner of the trial from you. Still.

Your odds of making it out were about a hundred to one.

“We should go,” whispered Nea, “I mean one of us. I can do it.”

 _No, stupid,_ thought Feng, _Anyone who goes will die if he’s boobytrapped it right. But I bet even if you get there and see it’s impossible you’ll still try, because Jake’s your friend, and then you’ll both get stuck, and I’ll have to go or leave you both, and it’ll fucking suck, and he’ll cut you up on a hook again to get at me._

She didn’t say that out loud, though. Instead she said, “Okay. Number from one to ten?”

“Sure,” said Nea. “Uh…One.”

 _Shit._ Nea almost always guessed something on the other end of the spectrum from her last guess after losing, or a six. Feng had picked three as her number.

 _I’m gonna have to guess really well,_ thought Feng, _By two or better to tie. Okay, so last time hers was nine. She’s guessing far from what she guessed last time, and close to what I picked. Does that mean she’s going to keep her own choice up there, like a nine, or try to trick me by doing the opposite? Shit, I can usually read her better. Okay. No, if she’s being tricky, she’ll do middle of the road. Go for six. You’ve got good odds, and that’s one of her favorites to guess herself, so she’s likely to pick it. _“Six,” she said out loud.

“Mine was ten,” said Nea, looking proud of herself.

 _Fuck! Fuck, that’s off by four. She won, but if she goes she’ll get killed._ “Mine was also ten,” lied Feng, grinning back. “What can I say? Great minds.” Off my four was closer than off by nine.

Nea groaned unhappily, looking genuinely disappointed. She’d really thought she’d had her—and she had. “Look, are you sure?” asked Nea, “I’m better at sneaking; you’re faster on gens. I should be the one to get him.”

 _I know,_ thought Feng, _But neither of us is getting him._ “Of course I’m sure,” said Feng, “Those are the rules. I win, I get to do the rescue. Meet you at the door.”

She let go of the generator and slunk off, going around the ironworks instead of through this time. She could hear the Trapper’s terror aura once she hit about middle of the building—which was good. It meant he probably wouldn’t find Nea.

 _Should I even go?_ thought Feng, _There’s no way he hasn’t trapped the shit out of it. I hate to leave Jake to just die after he saved me, but I don’t think he can be saved. Plus, this is Jake. I bet he has a generator close to done, and if I go find it instead, the rest of us can maybe all make it out. Three alive isn’t bad for a trial. It’s probably what he’d want._

It was, but she still felt a little bad about it.

_Okay, fine. I’ll do due diligence and look in, unless the Trapper’s by the shed. If he left it alone, I’ll grab Jake, if he trapped it, I’ll go find his gen. Either way, at least I’ll have tried._

She got close easily, hearing the Trapper _somewhere_ close but no idea where, and not in sight. _Bitch-ass camper,_ thought Feng as she reached the edge of the shack, _Little piece of shit no-skill boy._

All three entrances to the shed had been trapped. Both doors and the windowsill. Forget making it down the stairs, Feng wasn’t even going to make it in the building. She could have deactivated one, sure, but it would injure her if she did—the way he’d set them up—and if she tried to jump it she might fall, and she’d have to deal with it on the way out, with the Trapper on her ass, which would be even worse. Plus, there were sure to be more on the stairs she wouldn’t have time to get. He’d be coming as some as she let the first one snap shut.

 _It just can’t be done,_ thought Feng unhappily, _I’m sorry Jake._

There was a loud snap and a scream about six feet from her, and Feng was so surprised she almost jumped out of her skin. When she looked, she saw Jane Romero with her foot in a beartrap just inside the shed.

_Fuck! Of all the stupid!_

There was a pallet lodged in one of the doorways slantwise, and she’d climbed over it and not seen the trap past it and landed right in the middle of it and was clutching her leg and trying to pry the trap open with little sobs of pain.

 _Fuck, he’s gonna be on his way now. I should just leave, right?_ thought Feng, _Or I could run past and try to get Jake now that she’s kind of already deactivated one of them._

Jane got the trap off her leg, cutting her hands and leg open worse as she did, the way Feng had, and she fell forward onto the wood of the shack floor and tried shakily to get to her feet and couldn’t. Feng saw the Trapper coming from the ironworks in the distance.

 _Oh, fuck me. If she dies, then he’ll only have me and Nea to chase after,_ though Feng, dashing around the far side of the shack and sliding over the pallet herself to grab Jane. She lifted her up with all her might and pushed the larger woman onto the pallet and off the far side, then slipped over it herself, getting Jane’s blood all over her pants, then put the woman’s arm over her shoulder and dragged her towards a row of brick walls on their left.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck! Just once today, get lucky, I’m begging you!_ thought Feng angrily, dragging Jane with her behind one of the walls. _Don’t see me!_

The Trapper checked the basement first, expecting her to have gone for Jake like she’d thought he would, and Feng gave a silent prayer of thanks—a lucky break. His assuming of her nonexistent altruism had saved them. She got Jane further behind the temporary safety of the walls and found a locker, opened it, and shoved Jane inside.

“No matter what happens, do not _fucking_ move, or make a sound!” hissed Feng, “I don’t care how bad your leg hurts. You want to live, you shut up!”

She shut the door then, and crawled past it, to a little hollow area made by two walls in a sort of very thin rectangle shape, missing a third of one of the sides, and inside the little hollow she held perfectly still, waiting.

The Trapper came for them, angry and unrelenting—maybe guessing, maybe seeing tracks or smelling blood—and behind him, Feng saw the Entity lifting Jake’s shell into the sky as it completed the sacrifice.

_Sorry._

He was almost on top of Feng now, looking around, meat cleaver ready. She just knew Jane was going to sneeze or something. The Trapper took a step forward, right on top of her hiding place, scanning the terrain, and he was so close she could have touched his leg. Feng held her breath.

The generator she and Nea had been working on lit up. Immediately, the Trapper turned on his heel and took off for it, leaving them. Once he was far enough away not to hear, Feng let out a sigh of relief. If she hadn’t already been crouching, she probably would have sat down.

_Get moving. One more gen. Gotta go before he finds Nea, and Jane already wasted enough of your time._

Feng walked over to the locker and opened it. “You can go now. Here,” she said uncaringly, handing Jane a roll of gauze and needle and thread she’d taken from the medkit Nea had borrowed, “You gotta learn to patch yourself up sometime. I’m finishing the last gen. Try not to get spotted.”

She turned and left then, eyes quickly searching for the nearest generator. There was one not too far off, by a big stack of logs, and Feng went for it and quickly got to work, doing her best to keep an eye out for the Trapper. It had been worked on by someone before—only a little, but a little was better than nothing. Behind her, back by the wall but still in sight, Jane Romero faltered with the medical supplies and tried to sew her leg shut. She kept stabbing herself with the needle and chickening out, or having to take long pauses to try and calm down before digging it in and pulling another stitch closed.

 _Oh, get over it,_ thought Feng bitterly, _You have to sometime. Aren’t you supposed to be amazing?_

She felt bad about Jake. It wasn’t fair. He would have known they were in the shack, right on top of him, and didn’t try to save him. I mean—Feng knew he would know why, but still. If she could have picked, she’d have gotten him, not Jane.

Her true sight lit up and she saw the Trapper crush a pallet off to their left, near the Ironworks.

_Damn it! He found her!_

She fought feverishly to finish the generator, trying to beat the clock. Five more seconds and the generator lit, and relief washed over her. The exits lit up—one was close, only a few yards—just past the shack. The other back by the generator Nea had finished a minute ago.

Jane looked up, glancing towards the loud sounds announcing the doors were powered, and then they heard Nea scream.

She was close. Really close.

Jane looked in that direction and then braced her back up against the wall, trying to stay quiet.

 _He’ll take her to the basement,_ thought Feng frantically, _I know he will! But that’s a little way from where he’s got her—maybe she’ll get free. She might—it’ll be close, and I know he’ll try to go for the basement. I can—I can get to a door, and I’ll open it, and maybe she’ll get free. The one by the shack—there’s a chance. Come on—hurry—open the door._

She got to her feet and ran, tearing off for the closer exit. The Trapper didn’t appear to chase her, even though she could hear his fear aura washing over them. Feng reached the door and threw the switch, wishing again she had Quentin’s ability to tear a door open, vaguely aware of Jane limping after her.

The door was close to open—maybe seventy percent, when she heard Nea scream from the basement. She froze, looking towards the shack, waiting to see if he would come.

He did. One of the exits to the shack was in eyeline of the exit, and he reached the top of the steps as the door opened. Feng started to back up frantically, Jane beside her, but he just grinned at her and ran his blade along his fingers and turned and went back down the stairs.

 _He knew he wasn’t gonna get to me in time. He just wanted me to know he won,_ thought Feng, feeling sick.

In the basement, she heard Nea scream, and a sound she knew meant something was hitting tissue.

 _For fuck’s sake! I can’t—I can’t help her; I can’t leave her! I can’t anything!—What do I do?_ thought Feng miserably, sinking to her knees.

“Shouldn’t we…” said Jane, looking over at her. Feng wasn’t even sure if she meant leave, or go back for Nea.

Feng didn’t answer. She just shook her head. It didn’t matter. She would stay, until Nea was gone, because that was something. But she couldn’t be saved.

On her left, Jane took a few steps back towards the entrance to the exit and stumbled, letting out a choked sob and bringing her hands to the badly bandaged leg she hadn’t patched right. She started to tremble beside Feng, hands at the wound, not getting back up.

“Are you crying?” asked Feng, everything she was feeling pooling into anger at Jane, and disbelief.

“Yes,” said Jane, looking back over at her, face streaked with tears and makeup smudged, voice almost harsh for the first time Feng had heard from her, “Yes I am. I’ve never been killed before, and that poor man died after trying so hard to save me, and I can’t figure out how to do these things right, no matter how well you all explain it, and my leg has been torn open by a bear trap twice now and it hurts—I’ve never been injured before, and I’m afraid, and it hurts, and I can’t bear the pain, so I’m crying.”

Feng was a little surprised by the outburst, so she just stared at her instead of answering.

“I know I’m bad at this,” continued Jane, “I can tell. I’m quite aware. But I don’t know how to do it, and I’ve no experience, and everyone who is kind to me keeps dying when they try to help me, and I keep ending up with you, and you’re very mean,” she said, an expression on her face that Feng would have considered glaring if she hadn’t looked hurt at the same time, “I don’t know why you hate me, but you could try to be a little more understanding. I don’t like the stupid things I’m doing either. They got me killed. I’m not trying to do them! —This is my first day!”  

 _Well,_ thought Feng, feeling just a little bad, but also wanting to argue.

“And it’s not even over when I get back to the campfire,” continued Jane, talking faster and faster like she couldn’t stop, “You’re mean in them, and I die, and then I get out and immediately everyone comes crowding around talking about how I’m going to do a fantastic job because I’m ‘Jane Romero’ and they’re all very nice and sympathetic about me dying, but they keep saying I just got unlucky, and I’ll get it next time, and praising me, and expecting great things from me because I lived the first time, which had nothing to do with me at all! I just lost my whole life, and I spent years building a career and now everyone back in the world thinks I killed myself because of the pressure of always performing to perfection, and I wish that I had, because if I had at least I wouldn’t be here, getting tortured and killed over and over in front of people who _still_ expect me to be good at everything when I can’t! So yes! Yes. You’re very mean, and my leg feels awful, I’m sad, and I’m going to cry about it. I’m sorry if that _also_ disappoints you.”

 _Whoa._ Feng blinked, trying to soak that up, and was quiet for a second. Thinking.

“Were you gonna kill yourself?” asked Feng finally.

“Was I…what? No,” said Jane, “At least, I don’t think I would. Not really. I might have thought about it, but I wasn’t going to go through with anything.”

“I was kind of famous too,” said Feng, “I’m a pro gamer. Everyone got obsessed with me when I was good, and they still were when I started to fail, but in a bad way. Watching for cracks.”

“It’s not easy,” said Jane after a second, looking very unsure how to proceed with Feng’s fairly 180’d tone towards her.

“No,” said Feng, “It’s not. I think I was.”

“Was?” said Jane, then her eyes widened. “Oh.”

Feng nodded. She wasn’t looking at Jane though, she was looking back out at the shack, listening to the sounds coming from it. “Maybe. Not like, really on purpose, but if it happened-it happened kind of thing. Waiting to see if I could fall through the cracks once they got big enough.”

“I’m sorry you felt like that was your best way out,” said Jane quietly.

“I’m sorry I’m mean to you,” said Feng, glancing over, “I can’t promise I’ll stop, though. I’m mean to everyone.”

“I don’t know, it seems like I annoy you very specifically,” said Jane a little guardedly.

Feng shrugged. “I guess you piss me off a little extra because everyone’s obsessed with you. No one here expects anything from me. That pissed me off today. It’s kind of nice, though, I guess. Now nobody’s mad if I don’t pull through.”

“Is that why you hate me?” asked Jane, “Because of…people’s expectations?”

“No,” said Feng, “That’s just kind of annoying. I hate you because Meg said she might stop doing Meg Movies because of you. I’ll kill you myself if I have to to keep those, I’m not kidding.”

“Wait, what?” said Jane, completely lost.

“That doesn’t matter right now,” said Feng, eyes still locked on the shed, “Just, I don’t have a whole lot of stuff in my life that’s good, and I’m possessive and jealous about the couple things I have. I’d do what it takes to keep it.”

“Are you…waiting for her to die?” asked Jane, following her fixed stare towards the shed, “Shouldn’t we try to help her?”

“We can’t,” answered Feng, “He put bear traps on the stairs. I could maybe jump this first one at the door and get through, then drop onto the landing to miss the ones on the stairs, and grab her, but he’s down there, and we’d hit the traps running up if we somehow made it past him. Which we wouldn’t. I stop to get a trap first, and he’ll hear and come get me. Even if I got a bear trap somehow and he didn’t come for me, when I went to unhook her, he’d just stab me to stop me, or get her again as soon as she’s free, and then get me too, and we’d both die.”

“I could help,” offered Jane, “I could get the trap on the stairs.”

“It’ll slice your arm open,” said Feng, “And anyway, it wouldn’t be enough.”

“Why is he doing this?” asked Jane, “If he’d come after us faster, he probably could have gotten one of us.”

“Yeah, but it would have been you,” said Feng, “And he wants me.”

“Then why is he—” said Jane.

“—That’s my girlfriend,” said Feng.

Jane looked solemn. They heard Nea scream again and Feng closed her eyes. _She doesn’t have long left. You could just wait it out. She’ll forgive you. She really likes you, and she’ll understand. If you go for her, all that’s gonna happen is she’ll end up dead and you’ll die too. Being altruistic is stupid. She wouldn’t want you to die._

She knew it was true, and Nea would forgive her, but it was hurting her to hear her scream.

 _I don’t want to let you down,_ thought Feng, feeling an ache in her chest, _You’re the only person who expects great things from me, and you’re the only one who never minds if I fuck up. I want to surprise you. And protect you. But I just make you get hurt more._

“Did you ever have anyone you couldn’t bear letting down, even more than fans?” asked Feng, looking over at Jane.

“My father, maybe,” said Jane, “But he never really got disappointed in me, that I remember. Myself, I guess? And then, I think when I was little, I always thought that if I did a good job at things, my mother would want me. That’s similar, I suppose. Is it like that with your girlfriend?”

“No,” said Feng quietly, shuddering as she heard Nea stop screaming and start crying, “She wants me even when I’m mean and bad. But that makes me want to make her proud of me.”

Jane nodded slowly. “We’ll probably die, but if you want to go back for her, I can try to help you.”

“Aren’t you afraid to do that?” asked Feng.

“Yes,” said Jane very sincerely, holding up trembling arms and looking down at them, “I’m shaking. But I’ll try.”

Feng considered that. “No,” she said after a second, letting out a breath, “Trying to save her is stupid, and it’s what he wants us to do. So I’m gonna do it alone.”

She took off, full-speed, and leapt over the beartrap in the doorway, sliding a little on the wood floor. Nea probably only had seconds before the sacrifice completed at this point. _Fuck! I’m never going to pull this off! Why did I wait so long? Fuck what am I thinking! This is stupid!_

Still going as fast as she could, Feng leapt off the edge of the stairway, past the beartraps she’d known would be there, and hit the ground.

The Trapper looked over at her in surprise.

“BITCH! Bet you weren’t expecting ME!” shouted Feng shrilly at the top of her lungs.

Nea looked over at her in surprise too, struggling against the Entity’s claws with shaking arms, long cuts down the front of her arms and legs and torso, and one gash leaking blood down her face and forcing her to keep an eye shut.

The Trapper turned and swung at her as she reached for Nea, and Feng ducked and felt the swipe take a chunk of her hair, but she didn’t care—she shot past him and got her arms under her girlfriend’s armpits and lifted her up, fueled by a stronger, more intense desire to protect her than she’d ever felt towards anyone in her life.

There was the sound of a loud _SNAP_ from above, and as Nea’s feet hit the ground, the Trapper was on top of them and he snatched the back of Nea’s flannel, but Feng grabbed onto Nea’s arm and ripped her towards herself with such force that the cloth split. She was dragging her with her up the stairs then, planning to throw herself on top of a beartrap there to be a bridge or try and chuck her girlfriend clean over them she wasn’t sure yet, but as they hit the landing and looked up, Jane was there, clutching a bloody arm above a disarmed trap.

A sharp sting cut through Feng’s back and she cried out, stumbling forward as she felt the meat cleaver dig through muscle, and she pitched forward and lost Nea’s hand.

Still running, Nea was beside her, and then past her as she fell, and Jane was dashing ahead of them towards the exit, like she should, but Nea saw her fall and came back for her. She grabbed Feng’s arm, dragging her up and shoving her sideways past her onto the floor of the shack, skipping the last four stairs, and behind her the Trapper reached them and brought down the cleaver into Nea’s side.

“No!” screamed Feng, holding out her hand like she could stop it.

Nea screamed too, stumbling from the top of the steps forward, past Feng, but the scream changed in her throat from one of immense pain to just a vaguely confused sound, and then she looked down at herself in surprise. There was a huge cut in her side. Massive. It reminded Feng of how the Spirit looked. And blood was leaking out of it, but Nea was still standing up, just staring at it. Like it didn’t hurt at all. The Trapper was staring too, dumbfounded.

“Run!” shouted Jane from the door.

Feng scrambled up and leapt past the beartrap in the doorway, Nea right behind her, and then beside her as they sprinted, and all three shot towards the exit. The Trapper came after them, fast, and Feng was about halfway through the exit when she felt his cleaver dig into her back and she fell forward onto the ground with a scream. She started to crawl for the safety of the burrier as he wiped the blood off his cleaver, and he came after her and bent down to grab her, but suddenly Nea was standing over her, in his way.

He slashed the cleaver across her gut and she fell back this time too, almost on top of Feng, who was still crawling, so close now, and then Jane was standing over them both, blocking him, and he furiously carved her across the chest and as she fell backwards with a scream onto Feng’s hip, Feng made it over the barrier, Nea right with her, and she felt the black spikes shooting up around them, blocking him from following. Cuts started to close up on her body, and Feng pivoted on her hands and knees and reached back through the barrier and grabbed Jane’s hair and dragged her over the barrier as the Trapper lunged at them, and then all three were safe on the far side of the spikes.

Just staring at him, just staring at each other.

“Hah!” shouted Feng after a second delay to realize they’d won, “Pissy little bitch!”

Nea dove over onto her and kissed her, and the three of them vanished.

They burned back into existence together by the campfire, Nea still with her arms around Feng, and Jane laughing with relief beside them.

Jake looked up and stopped whatever conversation he’d been having with Claudette and Dwight, confused by the way they’d arrived.

“You guys made it out?” asked Meg hopefully.

“Yes,” said Jane, still laughing, wiping at her eyes with the corner of her hand, “Yes, we did.”

“How did you do that!” said Feng, staring at Nea as she broke the kiss.

“Me?” said Nea, “I was gonna ask _you_ that!”

“What do you mean?” asked Feng.

“When you grabbed me off the hook, it was like you stabbed me with something—like injected, like a drug,” said Nea, “I thought you had and I’d, like, missed it somehow.”

“Wait, you’re saying _I_ did that?” said Feng, staring at her.

“I think so,” said Nea. “You didn’t?”

“I don’t think I did,” said Feng, shaking her head, “All I did was unhook you.”

“Well someone did _something,_ ” said Nea.

“What happened?” asked Dwight.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” said Nea, looking from him to Feng again, “I was on the hook, and then, it was just like as soon as she grabbed me I felt this surge of energy like I’d just snorted a line of crack or something, or triggered an adrenaline rush, and like, we got to the stairs and he hit me and it barely hurt. Like I could see my side in fucking _chunks,_ but it was fine. Like my body was like ‘No big deal. You good,’ but the meth sensation was gone, and I was just kind of tingly. You’re fucking _sure_ you didn’t do something to me?”

“I don’t know,” said Feng, holding up her hands and looking at them, “Magic fingers,” she said, wiggling them.

“Is that usual? To do something crazy and not know how it works?” asked Jane. For once, the dedicated inquisitiveness didn’t bother Feng.

“Um, I don’t know,” said Claudette, voice uncertain, “I guess sort of?”

“Yeah, something like that happened to me recently,” said Meg, making a muscle, “I fucking clutch healed myself by force of will and punched a guy. Still no idea how.”

“We’ve leveled up,” said Feng to Meg, giving her a nod, “New ability learned.”

Meg laughed. “Fuck yeah. The rest of you need to catch up. Feng and me are out here doing magic shit. Or Nea and me.”

“I’m pretty damn sure it was Feng,” said Nea.

Meg grinned at her, and Feng felt proud.

“Can you describe it?” asked Dwight, “Did something bring it on?”

It had been a whirlwind 48 hours for all of them, and the man was floundering trying to play secretarial catchup and keep things organized.

“Uhm,” said Feng, looking over at Nea. _Maybe. I wanted to save you._ She shrugged. “I really wanted to get Nea out of the basement, and it was impossible. But I did anyway.” She remembered Jake then, and felt a little bad. “Sorry Jake,” she added, glancing over at him.

He shrugged. “I’m not your girlfriend.”

 _Yeah,_ thought Feng, _Or exactly my friend either, but I kind of like you, and I kind of wish you did care that I didn’t save you. I mean, I don’t not care about you at all. You can get a little mad._

“So you sorta…shielded her? Somehow?” asked Kate.

Feng shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Fuck, like, please remember how to do that and teach me!” said Meg enthusiastically, “I’m so tired of dealing with pissed killers who set up camp at a hook. Especially right at the end.”

The others were sort of crowding around now, all interested, all excited.

 _I made Nea happy, and I think proud,_ thought Feng, looking over at her. Nea saw her looking and smiled, looking really, truly happy in the moment. _I bet you didn’t think I’d try to get you, much less actually do it. But I’m the best there is._

Jane was watching her too, smiling as people asked questions.

“Thanks for getting the one on the stairs,” said Feng, looking over at Jane.

Jane smiled and gave a graceful nod back. “Of course. One ten to another,” she whispered, leaning a little closer and speaking in a mumbled undertone so only Feng would catch it.

Feng laughed. “Don’t oversell it, 9.8,” she whispered back.

Shifting back to where she’d been, Jane smiled at her and shook her head.

“I’m gonna try to remember how to do it,” said Feng loudly to the rest of the group, “So Jane and Nea, come with me. We’ll act it out. Everybody else leave me alone and don’t break my concentration.”

She stood up, pulling Nea with her and expecting Jane to follow, which she did.

“You have an actual plan with that?” asked Dwight.

“Yup,” said Feng, starting to walk and not looking back.

Jane gave them a sort of apologetic shrug behind her and followed.

Feng had gone about fifteen feet when she remembered and turned around. “Oh, Quentin. Come too.”

Quentin looked up at her in surprise. “What?”

“I need someone to watch,” said Feng.

“And you want _me_ to—” Quentin started.

“You won’t get distracted,” said Feng, “Come on. Nobody else.”

Quentin awkwardly got up and gave the others a ‘ _sorry, I don’t know’_ gesture and followed.

Feng kept going until they were well into the woods, and then she stopped.

“Okay. Jane, go take a nap or something. Nobody will come bother you. If you want to, you can talk to one of us after we’re done, but I’d just go to bed,” said Feng.

“You’re not gonna practice remembering at all, huh,” said Nea, not looking super surprised.

“Nope,” said Feng.

“Uh, why am I here?” asked Quentin.

“I want to learn how you can see doors and open them really fast. I know you probably can’t teach me, but I’m pissed I can’t do it,” said Feng, “So I wanna try. But I’m gonna go make out with Nea first,” she continued, “Because it’s been a long day and I want to. Yeah?” She turned to Nea to make sure she was feeling it too.

“Oh, hell yeah,” agreed Nea.

“You can just have some time alone, if you want it,” said Feng, “Or go back to camp if you get super bored, or talk to Jane, if she’s not sleeping. Do whatever.”

“You dragged me out here to tell me to do whatever?” asked Quentin.

“No, because I want your best skill, and I’m done not having it,” said Feng, “But also to tell you to do whatever.”

He glanced at Jane and she shrugged, looking amused and also fairly contented by the turn of events.

“Okay. That would be kind of nice, actually,” he said, sitting down a little unsteadily, “I’ll, uh, be around here when you get back.”

She nodded and took Nea’s hand, turning off with her to go further into the forest. They had a fun game, picking out places to bang based on pros and cons of how they could use the environment to their advantage, and this was already looking like pretty good terrain for that. Lots of little grassy banks to roll down.

Behind them, Feng heard Quentin ask Jane if she wanted to talk, or to pass out, and Jane say something about wanting to sleep or just sit there and think, but first to know what ‘Meg Movies’ were and if it was this thing Adam had mentioned earlier, and then they were too far from the others to get anything more distinct than the sound of voices.

“I hope I can remember how to do it, though,” said Feng absently, “It was very clutch.”

“Yeah it was,” said Nea, grinning at her. “This is nice though. Giving them some space or whatever. Don’t know how you knew they wanted it, though. I didn’t.”

Feng shrugged. It had seemed pretty damn obvious to her. She didn’t know how nobody else noticed. “Were you surprised?”

“Nah,” said Nea, “I mean, I kind of thought maybe you were going to see if we could get Jane for a three-way until you invited Quentin, and then I was confused, but I’m not really surprised by this.”

“I meant that I came back,” said Feng.

“Oh, no way,” said Nea, wrapping her arm around Feng’s at the elbow and leaning over to kiss her cheek, “I knew you’d come rescue me.”

 _I know you’d have said the same thing if I asked you if you were mad I didn’t save you,_ thought Feng, smiling and swinging her arm with Nea’s, _“No way Feng. I knew you would. It’s what I wanted. You’re way too smart to let him get you by taking the bait. I’m glad you lived.” You’d have been happy for me either way, but you’re happier this way. You would have still believed in me like I did the right thing if I just ran away, but you meant it when you said you knew I’d come save you. ‘Cause you don’t always know what I’m gonna do, but for some reason you always believe in it, no matter what. That’s why I love you. And I got to surprise you this time and make you really happy by—_

She stopped walking.

_Wait a second._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Borrowed Time, with its ability to pass on to a teammate in real trouble the ability to take a hit from a killer that should down them, has always been a truly irreplaceable perk when it comes to getting out of bad situations with angry killers. I play the game on console, so I'm not personally familiar with Bill Overbeck (and is also the reason he isn't in this fic), but he and his legacy on console in the form of his perks are a big part of the world, so I wanted to do him justice, or something like that, with at least a little aside. He is part of their world. Every character is given a 'role' in the game, which their perks orbit around (such as Dwight being a Nervous Leader, or David a Rugged Scrapper--Quentin and Laurie a Resolute Dreamwalker and Determined Survivor, respectively) and Bill is described as an "Old Soldier," which packs connotations of experience, realization of the harshness of reality, and determination to continue in the worst of it. While he's not playable on console, his three perks, Left Behind, Borrowed Time, and Unbreakable still are, and at least the second two are very widely used. Bill's short description lists him as knowledgeable and able to survive nearly anything, but fully ready to take one for others and do what it takes to help them live instead. This makes him very similar to, and simultaneous about as far from Feng Min as possible. Feng's perks Lithe, Alert, and Technician all revolve around her own survival. Technician specifically is /only/ useful if you're alone, because it makes your work quieter, but not that of everyone on a generator with you. Benedict Baker describes her as a lone wolf--not unfeeling or cruel, per-se, but focused first and foremost on her own survival and success, and everything else secondarily. Their lineups make Bill and Feng two of the most survival skilled, but polar opposite on team altruism. That said, everyone changes and grows as they live. To have a skill like Bill's in the Entity's world requires intense strength of character in the area of the skill, but I think deep down Feng has always had what it takes to want to save someone badly enough to make it real--she just needed to find the proper motivation, and she has.  
> Also, out of all the survivors, I think Feng would be one of Bill's favorites. She's tough and competitive and has a mouth on her. It would probably make him proud.  
> Jane Romero and Feng are technically both famous, in their own right. Oprah wasn't as big a deal overseas as in America and then Canada, though, so it's unlikely--especially as young as Feng is--that she'd have any kind of strong knowledge or opinion of the woman. While it would probably be a little frustrating to deal with someone you didn't care about being overvalued while everyone gave zero shits who you used to be, Jane is also the only survivor who could probably really understand Feng's struggles over constantly having to perform for fans. Cosmically, it's kind of lucky for them that they both ended up with someone to talk to, as different from each other as they are. Someone who knows about parents not caring or wanting you, and how pressure from people who think they know you more than they do can crush you. Because of her particular brand of selfish and almost hedonistic affection towards others and rough take on social relations and life experiences, Feng also seems like the most likely (except perhaps for Jake) to look after her friends by seeing they get a chunk of time where everyone just leaves them the fuck alone. The chapter gets its name from Jane's perk Solidarity, which heals you while you heal a friend, because the idea behind it, 'Sharing painful experiences has the power to heal,' matched well, and the Jane quote that goes with it seemed especially fitting. "Showing up when things get rough, listening to people's problems, and supporting those in need; that's how you become stronger, that's how you grow."
> 
> I'm back from my fairly packed couple of weeks, and here with a Feng chapter! There are several of the next few chapters I'm especially excited to get to, and some loose ends to circle back to in them, so I really hope you all enjoy them as they come! Thank you all again, so much to everyone who reads, leaves kudos, and comments--it really inspires me to put in the work, and it means just overwhelmingly a whole lot to me.


	44. Bending Rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The survivors have an enlightening Wraith trial. Laurie asks a favor. Philip takes a risk.

_Okay, if this is the Nightmare, is there any way I can conceivably kill him?_

As she materialized completely between the ambulance with deep scorings from claws in its side and the little toddler playground, Laurie thought this question over very, very carefully.

It was far from a guarantee that ending up in the preschool meant it would be the Nightmare, but, for what it was worth, him, the Doctor and his institute, the Huntress and her home in the woods, and her brother and Haddonfield _did_ fall together far, far more often than any other killer and location. The Huntress the most—maybe even seventy percent of the time, but probably the Nightmare was the second most likely to pick his old haunting ground as his new one.

She had no way of knowing, and there was no sound of false children’s voices to prove her right, or terror aura from something else to prove her wrong—no Jigsaw boxes, no traps laying about, no sound of chainsaws in the distance. So, Laurie walked. If the killer wasn’t the Nightmare, and she couldn’t know it _was,_ then she should be working like normal. There was almost always a generator in the preschool, underneath it, in the basement, and killers tended to check there last. After all, it took a little extra time to get down there, and even if one of their prey happened to be down there working away, the odds of _all four_ being down there doing it was zero—always up against a wall, it was never a generator with room for four people to crowd around. Right at the start, it was almost a waste of time for a killer to check, unless they’d already checked the others.

Children’s drawings and miss-matched chairs around low tables, water fountains at knee height on her. Laurie passed them and dropped down through a hole in the floor into the basement—its steam pipes and furnace and the old mattress in a corner. She turned down a corridor and ended up by the base of one of the staircases, and there was the generator she’d been expecting. No killer’s basement down here this time beside it, either. Laurie mentally reminded herself to make sure that if and when she went down, she not do it near the Killer’s shack across the trial area, because if the basement wasn’t here, it was there, and getting hooked in the basement could ruin everything for them all.

Kneeling, Laurie started to get to work, motor skills fully engrossed on her job, mind still running over possibilities.

_There has to be a way to kill him, doesn’t there? Even in a trial. Kate was able to break someone’s arm, so we can at least deal damage—real damage._

Did there have to be a way, though? Even before things were unreal in this place, there hadn’t been a go-to fix to kill her brother. And Quentin _had_ killed his—he and Nancy had dragged him out of a dream, cut off his hand and slit his throat, then torched the body.

 _Meg swears by salting and burning,_ thought Laurie, _But I don’t know about that._

Was this even the man’s ‘real’ body? Or would you have to get his original one, back in reality? Or both? And would that even work?

 _Whatever the Entity is, it could, _thought Laurie, _It got him in the first place, and he doesn’t like it, so it has to be the more powerful…thing. But I can’t really see the Entity holding a bag of salt over his head threateningly. I wish we really understood what the Entity is. I need to start going to the meetings people have been having to come up with plans to kill the Nightmare. I’ve only been to a few._

Somewhere above her, Laurie heard the chiming of a bell, and then a thudding heartbeat.

 _Oh, good._ Relief washed over her. _It’s just Philip._

There were pounding steps above her and Laurie heard a thud back over where she’d jumped down into the basement herself, and then there was Jake, tearing around the corner full-speed. Philip behind him, weapon raised, giving chase.

 _No,_ thought Laurie, panicking for a second, _No, he can’t have forgotten! We didn’t do anything wrong!_

She fell back from the generator herself, and just a few steps behind, Philip dug the sickle into Jake’s back and he cried out and made it past her, up the stairs. Laurie turned and circled around instead, following one of the little paths past steam pipes down in the basement instead of taking the stairs, and Philip changed course and came after her.

As she ran from him, dropping a pallet and vaulting over some low pipes, Laurie checked over her shoulder, and saw he was clutching the wailing bell in his free hand, and felt relief wash over her. That had been the agreed upon sign—if the Entity was watching, and he had to play it straight, he would keep the bell on him after becoming visible, instead of letting it vanish like usual.

 _Not gone, just unfortunate,_ thought Laurie, feeling him get dangerously close to her as she went up the far staircase. She slid sideways into a little room on the left and dropped a pallet and heart him cry out in pain and agitation as it slammed into his head, but he’d made the lunge himself, and before the pallet hit him his blade sunk into her shoulder and she cried out too, stumbling forward and running faster, bleeding now.

_It isn’t fair—this is the second time I’ve been in one of these trials with him where the Entity’s watching. But at least it’s still Philip, instead of anyone else. I guess I still got lucky._

It hurt, though. Her shoulder was throbbing and she could feel blood running down her back. She rounded the edge of the preschool again, and there was Jake. He moved between her and the Wraith as she ran past—Jake usually did that if he accidentally brought a killer to you—came back and tried to make amends. It worked. Philip went back into the preschool after him, and Laurie came to a safe stop behind the ambulance, breathing hard. Off in the distance, two generators lit up—one in a house, and one in the Killer’s shack.

There came a scream from inside the preschool, then, as almost at the same moment Jake went down.

Behind her, from the house where the generator had been lit, Laurie saw Meg come bolting down the street, and when she saw her, she power-slid to a stop behind her at the base of the ambulance.

“Laurie,” hissed Meg, “Who is it? Is the basement down there with Jake?”

“No,” whispered back Laurie, handing Meg some gauze she’d been about to use herself, and turning to let her shoulder face her, “And it’s Wraith.”

She hoped from the way she said it, Meg would get what she meant. _Wraith, not Philip. Don’t blow this._

Meg opened her mouth to say something, and then she second guessed herself, and her face fell a little.

_Poor kid, you’ve been waiting so long to have a trial with him. You finally get one, and he’s got to act feral in it._

Behind the preschool, Jake went up on a hook with a yell.

“I’ll go for Jake then,” said Meg, wrapping the bandage tight, “You probably have a gen you were almost done on. You go finish.”

Laurie nodded.

“Do you know who’s with us?” asked Meg, “Jake and I were on a gen together, but I haven’t seen the fourth. Is it Jane Romero?”

Laurie shrugged. She hadn’t seen them either. If it was her, that would be unfortunate. First time meeting Philip, and she’d probably get killed by him. Not a great icebreaker.

“Okay, well, here’s hoping,” whispered Meg.

They parted ways, Meg slipping off towards the hook, and Laurie back towards the basement, opposite ends of the ambulance, and as they rounded the vehicle’s edge, Laurie looked up and saw Philip’s shimmering outline between them, starting to uncloak.

_God damn it, it’s what we get for whispering. We’ve all gotten too brazen._

Laurie shot off back towards Meg’s lit generator in the house, and Philip took off after Meg, trying to stop her from making it to the hook rescue. As soon as she realized she wasn’t being followed, Laurie slid to a stop behind a bush and looked, just in time to see Meg get clipped in the leg vaulting the low fence around the playground.

 _I should probably go get Jake, then,_ thought Laurie.

There was another scream then—so fast Laurie thought somehow Philip and Meg must have run into Claudette or something, because Meg never got taken down so quickly—but she had. Only about seven feet into the playground.

 _He’s not pulling any punches,_ thought Laurie worriedly, _Or Meg can’t stomach running from him. She’s so competitive, though. This isn’t good for us._

As quickly as she could without leaving obvious signs of passing, Laurie made it back towards where Meg was about to be hooked on the side of the street, pressing her back against a chunk of concrete about fifteen feet away and holding her breath.

Laurie didn’t hear anything, and she had no idea what had alerted him, but Philip suddenly turned to look over his shoulder, and he dropped Meg on the ground, still a few feet from the hook, and tore off with incredible speed back towards where Jake had been hooked—not even pausing to cloak.

 _Damn it—someone else went for the rescue and he’s onto them,_ thought Laurie, _God, please make it._ Still, it was a chance to get Meg, if she was very, very quick about it. The second Philip was out of sight, Laurie broke cover and slid to a stop beside Meg, who was trying to keep her choked, pained sounds to a minimum. Her leg was cut, deep, and there was a long laceration down her back. _God, I won’t be able to get this fast,_ thought Laurie, trying to focus and do it anyway. She did her best to work quickly, hands weaving in and out, stitching her back together—knowing that doing it fast like this was painful, but necessary. Meg bit her lip, holding perfectly still. Behind them, there was a shout in a voice that Laurie was almost sure was Adam’s.

_He didn’t get to Jake. Shit—shit, he’ll either get Adam or come back for Meg now, and either way, we’ll be down two at once with a third injured. Faster._

She went faster, trying to stabilize the leg at least enough Meg could run on it, and beneath her, Meg dragged herself to her knees. She turned and put a hand on Laurie’s shoulder and gave her a nod, expression reading _‘I’ve got this.’_

“Go, I have Jake,” whispered Laurie so quietly it could barely be called audible, turning and running for the doorway into the preschool.

As Laurie tore through the preschool, what she had assumed earlier was confirmed as she saw Adam in the distance. He was near the road, struggling to keep a car between him and Philip, blood running down his arm. It didn’t look good. _Come on, Adam. You can make it._

Running full-tilt, Laurie reached Jake in a matter of seconds and tore him free. He didn’t have to hear her tell him to run or hide or anything. There was a half-second nod while she was still helping him down, and he was gone, vanishing back inside the preschool.

 _Finish my generator, or try to help Adam?_ wondered Laurie, torn. There was the tolling of a bell about a foot in front of her, then. She hadn’t seen him—he’d kept trees between them—but he’d seen her. _Damn it! Either he lost Adam, or came back for Jake, but now he wants me,_ thought Laurie, running. Philip came behind her fast, relentless. It was so weird to see him like this—like she remembered.

Laurie had spoken to him more than maybe at least a good half of the others, and those memories were strong, but he’d been here since almost the beginning. One of the first killer’s she’d seen. And again, and again, and again, for years, he’d been this tall, quiet thing—a little like her brother in how he hunted by stalking and surprising, not chasing. Not unless you saw him in time. Glowing eyes. Low growl and loud breathing, almost more like you might expect some wild animal or a tree spirit to sound than a person. He had perfected the reenactment. As he chased her, Laurie using every ounce of forty years of experience to try and keep things between them, to double back, to dodge, to live, there wasn’t even a trace of the person she’d met beneath the stance. No hesitation, no overacted malice. Just a thing in the night coming to finish a job.

He caught her at a window, sickle taking a chunk out of her back as she tried to leap it ahead of him, and she knew she was about spent. This must have been part of the path Jake had led him on, chasing, because there were already smashed pallets and signs of a struggle. Pain rolling up her back and into her shoulders from the cut, Laurie ran for the basement of the house, hoping to slow him down a little down there. His aura was so loud, right on top of her, and in her rush, Laurie landed on a step wrong and fell the last few feet onto the concrete floor, landing hard on her side, arm and shoulder aching on impact.

 _Hell,_ thought Laurie, dragging herself up on an elbow, feeling a bruise starting to form on her cheek, _I’m so tired of dying._

Above her, back in the house, she could hear his aura still, but she didn’t hear his footsteps.

 _Did he lose me?_ she wondered. There was no way—she had to have made the world’s loudest thud just now, hitting the ground.

It was quiet, though, except the heartbeat. No matter how much she strained to hear any other sound.

 _Where are you?_ wondered Laurie, looking up, and then she saw him, outlined in red, one floor up, by the couch, just standing there. He was looking towards her, and she saw him see her as she read his aura and he read hers back. _Shit,_ thought Laurie, immediately looking away. Still no sound, though, no walking. No moving. Not for what had to be another thirty seconds. It was unnerving.

“Laurie?” came Philip’s voice finally, projected, but not loud—just loud enough for her to hear him down where she was. “It has left. I am not sure why it chose only to witness part of this trial, but it has gone for certain now. You can come back up. I will not harm you again.”

His voice was like it always was, formal and soft, a little bit hesitant, like it was so difficult for him to really think any of them might believe him. Laurie felt relief wash over her.

She pulled herself to her feet and walked up the stairs, turning into the living room, and there he was, waiting where she’d seen him before. He nodded at her, face looking solemn behind the mask.

“I’m sorry,” said Philip, whose sickle was already laying on the couch behind him, not in his hands.

“It’s fine,” answered Laurie, following his gaze to what she could see of the wound in her back. “I’ve had much worse.”

“That does not make it alright,” answered Philip quietly, “Or less painful.”

That was true. It hurt immensely.

“You don’t really have a choice,” replied Laurie, “We all understand.”

He nodded, looking uncomfortable. “You should find one of the others—they can heal you,” he offered after a moment, since she hadn’t said anything.

“No,” said Laurie, “I need to talk to you about something alone first.”

He tilted his head, immediately taking this seriously. “Alone?”

“I have to ask you to do something,” said Laurie, glad that her back stung so badly because she was about to do something harsh, and unfair, and it made it easier. “I’m sorry.”

“What is it?” asked Philip. She could hear in his voice that he was already concerned, and it made it harder.

“I need your help,” said Laurie, “But it’s going to be dangerous for you.”

“What’s happened?” said Philip again, reading her expression, and moving closer on instinct, then drawing back halfway through the moment, remembering to be wary of making them feel cornered by him.

“Quentin almost died,” said Laurie, “For real. Not in a trial.”

“Is he alright?” asked Philip, alarmed. Worried. It was such a genuine response, immediate. Like everyone had looked last night when Quentin had appeared, bloodied on the ground.

“For now,” said Laurie, because he wasn’t alright. He was just alive.

“It was the Nightmare?” asked Philip, brow furrowed and face etched with worry, “He found a way to leave his area?”

“He gets people in dreams,” said Laurie, “And he can’t seem to get to the rest of us—at least not yet, but it’s why Quentin doesn’t sleep. He _can_ get to him. Can kill him. And he found a way to force him to go to sleep, and almost did.”

“He will live, though?” said Philip, concern still in his voice and what she could make out of his expression.

“He pulled through,” said Laurie, “But he’s hurt. Bad. He won’t make it again.”

“How is that possible?” Asked Philip, more in confusion than as if he doubted her, “I can’t imagine the Entity would be foolish enough to leave him a way to force someone to sleep if it knew he could kill them.”

“It didn’t,” continued Laurie, “The Nightmare got help from another killer. The Clown.”

“The Clown?” answered Philip immediately, intense distaste in his voice.

“You don’t like him?” asked Laurie.

“It’s the Clown,” replied Philip, still sounding disgusted, “No one likes him.”

_I’ve never seen him so pissed about the thought of another Killer before—even the ones he said he didn’t really care for. That’s weird._

“Why not?” asked Laurie, “I didn’t know you all had strong opinions on each other?”

“Generally we don’t, as far as I know,” answered Philip, “But the Clown is different. I can’t imagine he would really do something like that. You are certain he was helping the Nightmare kill someone?”

“Very,” said Laurie adamantly.

“That’s not like him at all,” replied Philip.

“Why?” asked Laurie again.

“Because he is a huge pet!” said Philip, irritation palpable now.

“A pet?” repeated Laurie.

“Yes,” continued Philip, “There is an American idiom I am not remembering. He will do anything no matter how degrading to appear favorable to the Entity, and succeeds.”

“A teacher’s pet?” asked Laurie.

“Yes!” said Philip, glad she’d got it so quickly, “That’s the one! A suck-up. A boot licker.”

 _Wow, you really hate this man,_ thought Laurie, not sure how to take such unexpected animosity.

“And that makes all of you hate him?” said Laurie, interested and almost finding this funny, for a reason she couldn’t place at all.

“We—well,” he stopped, former enthusiastic hatred fading a little and looking almost embarrassed, or ashamed, “You have to understand,” he said a lot more carefully, “It—the Entity—it trains us. We are…brought up here, conditioned, taught, punished and rewarded. All of us. It is very careful, and thorough, and strong. We are taken. It makes us its own, and we are unmade by it, and then made again. Entirely at its disposal and mercy, and we…” He looked uncomfortable, eyes darting away for a moment and then back to her before he continued, “We want it to like us. There is a drive to please and appease it I cannot correctly articulate to you. Our existence and all our meaning and purpose and the moments of our lives, their value is in making the Entity proud. If we succeed, we are rewarded. If we fail, we are punished, and spoken to. Taken apart until the issue is fixed, and we perform again.”

“You fear it,” said Laurie.

“Yes,” nodded Philip solemnly, “All of us do. But it is more than that. We all want to be the favorite because we are trained to want to be the favorite, not just because to be the least favorite means suffering. Even now, while I do not think like that, it is hard for my body to forget the impulse at times. It is deep inside me to want to serve it. As much as this disgusts me. It is no longer something over which I have complete control.”

“So, you all hate the Clown because he’s the Entity’s favorite, and all of you are jealous?” asked Laurie.

Philip nodded. “That is the simplest way to put it. He did not get here like many of us—through coercion and physical changes. Beatings, and ultimatums, distortions and torture. He simply came. As far as I know, he has not even been touched. No alterations to his existence, no injuries. He just kissed ass since day one, and ever since has been given special treatment.”

“Wow,” said Laurie. It made sense, in a way. He was one of the most undamaged and human looking, and with no supernatural abilities. Well, human looking for a given value, under the makeup. “All of you feel this way?”

“It is one of the few things on which I expect every one of us is united,” replied Philip, “I told you before that of the ones I have spoken to, I have a rather antagonistic relationship with Evan? Compared to how I know both of us feel about the Clown, our feelings towards each other are those of lifelong friends. The only one who even comes close to being as hated is the Nightmare himself.”

“Why the Nightmare?” asked Laurie, “He breaks the rules all the time—he can’t possibly be a favorite.”

“Oh no,” replied Philip, “The Entity hates him as well. We just hate him in general, because he is an asshole who is quite full of himself, and he never shuts up.”

 _That’s the fucking truth,_ thought Laurie.

“I am sorry, you did not need to hear all of this,” said Philip wearily, “The Clown. You say he helped the Nightmare, and may do it again?”

“Yeah,” replied Laurie, a lot to think about, but back on task herself, “As best we can figure out, the Nightmare enlisted the Clown. Got him to drug Quentin and knock him out. Then it spent the rest of the trial torturing the rest of the group.”

“Were you?” asked Philip, looking sickened at the word ‘torture’.

“No,” replied Laurie, wishing she had been in the trial. It wasn’t like she wanted to suffer, but maybe there would have been something she could have done. Things had been so down to the wire, and everyone who had been there was so fucked up now. Maybe things could have been different. “We’ve known for a while that the Clown is gross, and sadistic, but he isn’t like the ones who actually push the rules to hurt us extra—like the Pig, or the Doctor. He’ll cut you up some for fun while you’re on the hook, which is awful, but it’s never out of the ordinary. We heard from one of the other killers, though, that the Entity prioritizes when it comes to rule breakers. And Quentin thinks the deal was that, if the Clown kept him unconscious, whatever it did to the rest of the people in that trial, the Entity wouldn’t have time to notice, or care, over the fact the Nightmare had really killed one. It could make sense, especially if he’s a kiss-up who would never do that on his own.”

“But would want to,” finished Philip thoughtfully, “That does make sense. He certainly used to do that kind of thing, and I expect he misses it, but is too coward to risk losing his place at the Entity’s feet if he goes off his leash.”

“The Entity does prioritize?” asked Laurie.

“It does,” replied Philip, “Although, it has a long memory if it notices, even if it does not deal with you immediately. It would be more accurate to say that the Entity can be distracted and miss minor issues in favor of larger threats than that it lets things slide.”

“Whatever the reason,” said Laurie, “It’s probably going to happen again. Soon. The Nightmare wants him dead, bad, and it’ll be angry he got away this time. Also, the others blew the Clown up, so he’s probably looking for revenge.”

“And it would not be hard for him to get it,” said Philip, sitting down on the couch and leaning forward against clasped fingers thoughtfully, elbows braced against his knees.

It was really strange to be doing this—not so much with Philip as in a trial ground, but Laurie sat down in the chair opposite him and watched as he thought.

“He is the favorite, so I expect he regularly if not routinely gets whoever he asks for. It may be his next trial,” continued Philip, grim.

“Wait,” said Laurie, horrified, “You all can choose who ends up in your trials?”

Philip looked up and over at her and nodded.

“We knew there were patterns,” said Laurie, running that through her head and feeling her heart pounding a little at the endless implications, “But we thought it was just something the Entity did—putting people who hated each other together to cause conflict.”

“That is how it is much of the time,” agreed Philip, “and we do not always choose. I don’t know that I ever have. But I know others do. It will not always grant a request, but such things can be earned, like the right to kill can. Some of us take whatever is given us by the Entity, some like to pick and choose who they hunt. And I expect there are a few, like the Huntress and the Hillbilly, who may not be aware that requesting is even an option.”

Several generators had gone off while they were talking, and Laurie knew as much as this was all stuff she genuinely wanted to hear, she was running out of time. It was a Philip trial—hostile or not, it was a wonder Meg hadn’t already found them.

“Look, one of the others is bound to show up soon,” said Laurie quietly, looking over at Philip, expression serious and set, “But I need to ask you a favor first. A big one. I don’t know what we can do to protect Quentin, but if we don’t do anything, he’ll die. And I can’t let him die, but I can’t protect him from them.”

“They won’t stop,” agreed Philip, “Unless they are dead. Do you want me to kill him?”

 _Can_ _you?_ “The Nightmare?” asked Laurie, “Or the Clown?”

“The Clown,” replied Philip very seriously, meeting her gaze and holding it, “The Nightmare does not exist physically in this world. I do not think I could kill him. I could not even fight him unless he pulled me into a dream himself. I could try to challenge him, but I cannot guarantee I would win. He is something more like the Iska—the Alledjenu—than the humans here. A demon. The Clown I could beat, I am certain, although there would be punishment if I was found out, and I likely would be. I may die myself for killing another; I will certainly forget you. And I know it is not a permanent solution. If the Nightmare found a way before, he will again, with or without the Clown. But it would be harder, and it would buy time. I can try to do it, and do it quietly. If can try to kill the Nightmare as well, but I cannot promise I will be successful.”

 _You’re so ready to die,_ thought Laurie, heart sinking a little, _I know it’s good for us, but I wish you weren’t._ It was a weird thing for her, of all people, to think. After all, what right did she have to stop someone else from ending this suffering on their own terms, for whatever consolation prize or motive they held worthwhile enough to end it over? She only had five years on him.

“No,” said Laurie, “Thank you, for being willing to do so much for us, but we don’t want to lose you. Besides, I have an idea. It isn’t good, but it’s a little better than that one.”

He nodded, already accepting whatever it was she was about to say. “What would you have me do?”

“Can you tell the Entity what they did?” asked Laurie, “If it knows—and if it knows they’re going to try again, it might help us. We know it doesn’t care at all what happens to us, but it doesn’t want to burn us out too fast if we’re food to it, right? And it definitely won’t be happy to hear one of its killers tried to steal a food source forever behind its back.”

“It would be very angry,” confirmed Philip, “But I don’t know if I can get it to believe me. Like I said, the Clown is its pet. I think I am fairly low in its liking, as reapers go. It might believe me above the Nightmare, but above its favorite? Word against word?”

“Still, it can find things out, can’t it?” asked Laurie desperately. It had to work. It _had to._ There wasn’t another way. “It can see at least part of what we’re saying is true—it can see what’s been done to Quentin, and it would know we blew up the Clown in his last trial with us, right? We couldn’t have even done that if he hadn’t brought so much ether—all his supplies from his cart. He doesn’t do that normally.”

Philip nodded slowly, listening to her and thinking it through. “Yes,” said Philip, “that could work.”

“Can you do it without the Entity getting suspicious?” asked Laurie, knowing the answer had to be ‘no’, but hoping.

“If I tell it you all came and told me while I hunted you, it might believe that I am not working with you,” said Philip, trying to reassure her, “It’s a long shot, but it knows as well as the other killers that we all hate the Clown. It might believe I would want enough to get him in trouble that I would pass on a message from you all, even if I am still working for it as a loyal reaper. I will do my best to be believable, and I have some experience lying to it at this point.”

 “I know you’ll be careful, and it’s…It’s life or death, otherwise I wouldn’t ask you,” said Laurie, feeling terrible, and probably even worse than she usually would have, compounded by the worry of losing Philip again and still failing to help Quentin. “I know you’ll try not to, but. You’ll lose your memories if you do this, won’t you?”

She wanted him to give it to her straight, and she thought he could tell. He shifted a little and started to answer, but there was a thud and Meg Thomas came flying through the window behind them and landed on the floor of the living room.

“I knew it! Why didn’t you call for me!” she asked, giving Laurie a _How could you?_ look. “Philip!” she shouted, turning her attention to the other member of the room and launching herself at him.

He grimaced and braced and caught her, barely managing to snatch his sickle out of the way, because with Meg’s estimated trajectory the thing would have gone through her kneecap, and she rammed into his chest and hugged him.

“Hi,” said Philip, looking down at her, a little overwhelmed and frazzled, but appreciating it too.

 _Like everyone she does that to,_ thought Laurie, feeling the impulse to smile but not doing it. Smiling still felt a little abnormal to her, like she had no business doing it in a place like this. Usually she didn’t, if it was a conscious decision.

“I finally got you in a trial!” shouted Meg happily, “Jake, Adam! I found them! We’re over here by the shack, in the house!”

The other two came, but not at a run, and towards the door instead of the window, like normal human beings.

“How have you been!” asked Meg excitedly, still sort of sitting on Philip’s lap.

“Uhm. Passible,” replied Philip, glancing over at Laurie, “And you?”

“Well, there’s a _lot,_ ” said Meg, “We sort of made friends with another killer—Susie, part of the Legion. Did Dwight already tell you?”

“He mentioned that, yes, and that the Huntress was acting unusual towards two of you,” said Philip.

“Damnit, I wanted to tell it,” said Meg unhappily. “Well, anyway, that’s going on. Quentin almost died, which was awful—”

“—Laurie has explained that,” said Philip gravely, “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, but did she tell you about how Claudette saved him?” asked Meg, beaming.

“Uh, no—” started Philip.

“—OH!” said Meg, “And JANE ROMERO is here! _THE Jane Romero!_ She’s a new one of us—got here this morning!”

“I am not familiar with…” said Philip slowly.

“It must have happened after 1982,” said Laurie, “I don’t know her either. She’s some tv personality, though.”

“I’m so upset for you two,” said Meg as Jake and Adam walked in the door, waving greetings and moving to sit down, Adam taking a seat in the second chair, and Jake propping himself up comfortably on the open windowsill. “You missed the whole 80s—well, except for you Philip, but you barely got them at all!”

“I don’t think that’s their main source of regret,” said Adam. Looking over the others in the room, he double-took when his eyes passed Laurie, and he motioned her over. “You’re still bleeding. Come here, I’ll get it for you.”

Laurie stood up and walked over to Adam’s chair and sat down in front of it, tucking her knees up and leaning forward on them so he could reach her back. Adam dug a handful of supplies out of his pockets, and Laurie passed him what was left of her gauze. It hurt as he worked, but just in an idle way. Adam was always careful.

“Either way,” said Meg, “It’s a pity. I mean just think about it—all the music, the movies. _Ghostbusters, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Princess Bride,_ like four John Hughes movies, _Die Hard, Footloose, Terminator_? Damn it was a good time to be enjoying pop culture. Not to mention Jane’s show.”

“So, there is an actress here now?” asked Philip, still trying to piece together the Jane Romero thing.

“A talk-show host,” said Adam, carefully stitching up Laurie’s back while trying to think of something to equate it to, “Like _The Tonight Show,_ with Johnny Carson. Only, she specifically took on issues other people would not discuss—abusive homes, complexity of divorce, social issues, mental illness, poverty. She was quite talented, and brave.”

Philip nodded.

“She’s so cool, you guys don’t even understand!” wailed Meg, “She’s like, one of my top ten inspirational women! Did you know her mom left when she was a baby, and she grew up with just her dad? She did theater and speech, and got kicked out of her first job for being way too tough and talking about things they didn’t want her too. She’s so fucking cool! She never let anything stop her! My mom and I used to watch reruns of the show, and one Christmas when they were on sale, we both got each other copies of her book as gifts without knowing it. It’s the only non-fiction thing I ever read that wasn’t for school.”

“I see,” said Philip, not really seeing.

“God,” said Meg, wheeling on Adam and not noticing Philip’s confusion, “Adam why did you have to tell her about my movies! I can’t let _Jane Romero_ see me doing a, like, Batman impersonation. She’ll see right through me and know I’m an amateur and a fraud, and I can’t take that kind of rejection from her!”

“Oh,” said Laurie, surprised “That’s a _Back to the Future_ reference, I got that one.”

“What?” said Meg, aghast.

“From—from when you told it to us—it is, isn’t it?” asked Laurie, unsure now.

Jake nodded. “Yup. She has you. It’s what the dad said was the reason he never wrote his books before Michael J. Fox went back in time and made him not be such a wuss. You’re quoting George McFly.”

“I’m not!” said Meg, looking horrified, “Oh my god, am I? Look, it’s like—I’m not a wuss, but you don’t understand—Jane Romero is really important to me. I don’t want her to think I’m stupid.”

“Okay, George,” said Jake, not looking like he felt one way or the other about her decision.

“Why would she think you look stupid?” asked Adam, “None of us do.”

“But you’re not professional movie people!” said Meg, “Jane is!”

“You said she’s not an actress,” said Philip, still confused.

“Yeah, also, you are kidding about stopping, right?” asked Laurie. _You’re gonna have blood on your hands if you do. It’s like…that and keeping Quentin alive stopping me from killing myself._

“Yes, you can’t stop,” said Adam very seriously, “I told her about them because I believe she would appreciate them. You do a good job.”

“But what if she thinks I’m stupid and hates me?” said Meg, looking from one to the other.

“Claudette’s been working really hard on dancing,” said Jake, voice cold, “I didn’t drag my soul through the mud to get her in your production for you not to do it.”

“Oh, right, that’s—I guess,” said Meg uncertainly, looking pretty ganged up on, “I should—wait, what do you mean? What did you do to her?”

Jake didn’t answer.

“Jake! You promised you wouldn’t blackmail her!” said Meg.

“I didn’t,” said Jake.

“What was that about dragging your soul through the mud, then?” asked Meg indignantly.

“Do you think it’s easy for me to ask people to do things? No dignity?” said Jake, “It’s against my nature. It’s a betrayal of self.”

Meg looked like she didn’t know if she believed that, but didn’t have enough evidence to accuse him of being a bald-faced liar.

 _But no. Today I was finally going to hear Star Wars. That’s not fair. I guess at least if she quits, Quentin will still tell me,_ Laurie consoled herself. It wouldn’t be the same, though. And she’d been very, very happy about that this morning.

“Really, though—you’re not stopping, right?” asked Laurie, “We only just started _The Empire Strikes Back._ ” She had been trying to sound sympathetic for once because she really, really didn’t want Meg to stop, but instead some very genuine desperation had leaked in.

Meg looked over at her and bit her lip, then her expression softened and she caved. “Okay. Sure, you’re right. I can’t be George McFly. But if Jane sees my stuff and thinks I’m dumb, you all gotta put in a good word to get me back out of that.”

“I feel a little affronted that all three of us together apparently carry less weight than Jane Romero,” said Laurie.

Jake nodded.

“It’s not like that,” said Meg, “Come on—guys.”

“I’m glad you’re continuing,” said Adam, “But unhappy to hear apparently I already missed _Back to the Future._ Have you ever considered taking requests?”

“Uh, sure,” said Meg, “I sort of have before.”

“What is this?” asked Philip, glancing over at Jake.

“She retells movies, and more recently sort of started a stage production thing to act out one of them,” said Jake.

Meg glanced at Philip with a look on her face like she was wedged securely between saying “Oh, no—it’s nothing” and bragging her heart out.

“Are you planning on more of those?” asked Adam before Meg had a chance to choose which road to walk, “Productions?”

“I dunno, slow down,” said Meg, “ _Dirty Dancing_ is going to take awhile because dancing is hard to learn. It’ll probably be another couple weeks before we’re ready for it. But I guess, maybe if it goes well.”

“If it does go well, you should do _The Breakfast Club,_ ” suggested Adam.

Meg’s eyes lit up.

 _Wow, he is really good at this, _thought Laurie. She had no idea what movie that was, but Meg did, and it seemed to have had almost the effect mentioning _Hocus Pocus_ around her did. _I still can’t believe she said if I were in Hocus Pocus I would be the cat with the dead sister,_ thought Laurie with tired indignance, _I hate that she’s right._

“That would be so fun to make into a!—but.” Meg hesitated, unsure suddenly again.

_Wait, really, it’s still not enough?_

“Oh, nevermind,” said Meg, waving what she was thinking away unhappily. “Anyway. Philip!”

“Didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” commented Jake from his perch on the windowsill.

“No,” agreed Philip, “I think I have finally earned my way back into a more regular rotation with the Entity.”

“Great! So, that means we’ll see you more often, right?” said Meg.

He nodded.

“I know it’s only been a day, so there’s probably not much new to tell,” said Jake, “But I’ll ask anyway. Any luck following up on things?”

“There is, actually,” said Philip, glancing over at Meg like he was really starting to wonder when she would get off of him.

 _Probably never,_ thought Laurie sympathetically, _You kind of have to make her move._

“I, uh,” continued Philip, trying to ignore being used as a chair and refocus on Jake’s question, “I have spoken with the Entity since. I told it one of the newer members of your group seemed barely to be trying now, and asked if it should be my goal for you all to give up, because, as I told you, it has always seemed that was against the Entity’s wishes, but I have never spoken to it in-depth about such things before. We simply know it is our job to hunt and sacrifice, but there has always been, in the back of my mind, and I expect it is the same for all of us, a switch. We do not break the rules of a trial, we give you a chance to escape. If it wanted you to simply despair, it seems there would be no easy way out. Well, I know it cannot be easy. Consistent way out, perhaps.”

“That makes sense,” agreed Jake, “We know we’ll just go back again, but knowing we can live and make it to safety for a couple hours is pretty strong motivation. If we just died no matter what, I think we’d all be husks that didn’t even try anymore by now. So it doesn’t want that, just like we thought? Why?”

“It told me that I should try to keep you all struggling for as long as possible. As many punishments in the form of trials as there can be. The explanation was much more dramatic coming from the Entity—a lot of things about repayment for actions in life, and false hope, but the answer was that I should try to keep you from giving up. And if that occasionally meant letting an especially discouraged one of you slip past me, or into a black lock, that was acceptable, and even rewardable.” Philip shifted and looked down at the scythe he still had his hand on. Meg followed his gaze to it, looking more serious now, but still not giving up her place on his lap.

“Okay, guess that would make it make sense that it gets pissed when the Nightmare pulls shit,” said Jake, “But some of the others are huge pains too. What about the Trapper? He never lets Feng go. Or the Pig—now that Tapp’s here, any time she sees him she does everything she can to kill him with a reverse beartrap.”

Philip shrugged. “Have they given up?”

“Have…?” Jake stopped.

“No,” said Laurie, “They’re still fighting.”

“Then probably what the Pig and Evan do is considered acceptable. If it simply makes you all more desperate—makes you suffer more, then it is good for us to do. It is only if it is so much that you lose all hope, and give up entirely, that we would be in trouble,” said Philip, “Or if we were breaking the rules, as a matter of principle and obedience to the Entity. Even if the results were good, I do not think we would be forgiven for disobeying. It does not like challenges to its power. Aside from our ability to supply it with the energy it desires, I think submission and subservience are our most valued traits.”

“No wonder it doesn’t like you much,” said Meg, grinning.

Philip looked over at her in surprise and smiled, caught off guard by the comment.

“You know why everything in trials is so elaborate?” asked Jake, watching him carefully.

“Yes,” replied Philip. He paused and looked down at Meg, and Laurie thought he was definitely going to move her off of himself, but Meg saw it coming and turned sideways and cuddled up against him, closing her eyes, and Philip relented.

 _Merciless,_ thought Laurie, eyes on the smug grin on Meg’s face. Adam carefully finished taping his bandage in place and tapped her on the shoulder to let her know he was done, and Laurie nodded at him in thanks, then stood up and went back to her former seat. She could have just stayed there on the ground by Adam, but personal space was still a thing she was having to get used to intentionally sharing, and with everyone but Quentin it still felt weird, and wrong.

“I asked if one of you gave up, if that would not be better, because I could sacrifice them more easily,” continued Philip, Meg temporarily forgotten, and his attention back on the rest of them, “They would still be suffering, even if they had given up hope. I know we also pay tribute to the Entity, but meat is meat. Blood is blood. Souls are souls. It does not harvest your blood, though, or your bodies.” Philip looked deeply uncomfortable now, but he kept going. “It needs you to feel, because that is what it feeds on. It told me the more intense the emotions we can sacrifice to it, the stronger it can make this world become for us. We are fed on too. It drinks our rage, our hate, the same as your fear and desperation. It can consume even positive feelings, like affection or hope, sympathy.”

“That’s why it makes us suffer?” asked Laurie, aghast, “So it can eat our emotions?”

Philip nodded.

Somehow that was worse. That was worse than being killed for your body to be sacrificed, or even your life or your spirit or whatever. It was—it was so unnecessary. People didn’t have to die to fell! And besides that, emotions were personal. Internal, and yours. It was disgusting to think that the only way not to give this monster what it wanted would be to feel nothing at all. To be like she had been before. Making friends, wondering about her brother, loving Quentin, liking stories—that had been personal. That had been a struggle to do—all of it. Every single step had been a deeply personal, internal fight to keep living, to find something to hold onto, even if it was just temporary, and that would have made this thing in the sky happy. She’d been trying to stay alive, for just a little longer. To not be so broken. And that had been feeding it. It was a betrayal of everything.

“What the fuck!” said Meg indignantly, “But you said it can eat any emotion, right?”

“Yes,” started Philip.

“Then why do we have to die all the time!” cut in Meg, “If it wants us to feel strongly, we could just go have a bunch of orgies!”

Philip got an indescribable look on his face.

“…I mean,” said Jake after a second, “She’s not wrong.”

Laurie didn’t know how to feel about that. That sounded kind of horrible too. _Jesus, I don’t have to give a verbal response, do I?_

Adam cleared his throat and looked out the window.

“Uh,” said Philip, “Considering that all of us would probably be involved in such a thing, including reapers, and knowing who we are, I’m fairly sure that it is a mercy the Entity hasn’t considered that.”

“Break it into two groups. You guys together, us together,” suggested Meg. “Except, you can come with us.”

“Please,” said Philip desperately.

 _You’re gonna kill him,_ thought Laurie.

“Listen,” continued Philip, trying hopelessly to derail Meg’s train of thought, “While it consumes emotions from us as well as you, I am fairly certain the hunt is a necessary part of the ritual—the sacrifice itself. It is a sort of god, I think, or something like it. An Alledjenu—a spirit. Old. There are things that must be done certain ways to sacrifice to things like that. Rituals exist for reasons. They are old rules.”

“Yes, but orgies are at least close to as old in mythology as human sacrifice,” commented Jake without emotion, “She might be on to something.”

“I do not think it is that kind of god,” replied Philip with pretty firm certainty.

“You could suggest it sometime,” said Meg.

“Please do not ask me to do that,” begged Philip, “I know I have promised to help you all however I can, but I think that is a terrible idea.”

“Do you really want to have endless orgies forever?” asked Adam, kind of a frozen horror on his face.

Meg shrugged. “Do you want to _die_ endlessly forever?”

“Philip makes a solid argument about the Entity,” said Laurie, deciding that if it came to it, she was probably going to throw her lot in with Adam and Philip’s side. God, caught between a rock and a hard place. “It probably does need sacrifices to get its energy, and needs them with blood,” she continued, “Besides, if Philip went up and told it to try just getting people to have sex all the time, that could go wrong in a lot of really, really bad ways. Think about that.”

Meg did, and a little of the lighthearted fun went out of her expression.

“Also,” commented Adam, “It would be dangerous for Philip to suggest that. What possible reason could he have for suddenly, after 35 years here, deciding to throw that out as a possible new way for the Entity to live. Do you want to risk losing him again?”

Laurie felt guilt well up in her chest at that question. Of course she didn’t either, but there was no good way out of this. No options.

“No, you’re right,” said Meg unhappily, “I was mostly just being funny. But it is a stupid way to go about this whole fuckin’ thing, if the Entity really just needs strong emotions from us. What an asshole. Even if it did have to hook us and do human sacrifice gross stuff to get energy, if it was just decent about this, we could have strong emotions of fun, or competitiveness—do events, and normal life stuff—making friends, having fun, falling in love. Then just pay tribute by getting in a line and dying once a day or something. That’d still fucking suck, don’t get me wrong, but it’d be less awful. It’s really fucked up that it doesn’t have to make us suffer like this, and it does anyway—like! Fucking asshole! I mean,” she added, looking from Philip to the others, “It’d be one thing if it was just like…an animal, or a machine. But it’s smart. It talks to Philip. Even if it’s not a human, it can damn well reason. It didn’t have to be like this.”

“An understandable way to feel,” said Philip, gently lifting Meg off his lap and setting her on the couch beside him. She made an unhappy sound like a cat might when moved. “It is not like a human, but it is intelligent. I do not think it reasons like us, though. Expecting it to show us sympathy would be like expecting a crocodile to listen to reason. Or a flood to take pity on those it consumes.”

“If it’s smart enough to talk, it’s smart enough to develop a conscience,” said Meg, crossing her arms, “I don’t care what it is.”

“This is a problem for us,” said Jake, whose mind had been entirely somewhere else, “A big one.”

“Yes,” said Philip looking up at him, “I thought the same thing.”

“What do you mean?” said Meg.

“He means,” said Jake, “If the Entity feeds on our emotions, it has to be able to sense them, logically. Right? How do you think Philip’s been feeling about killing us, and we’ve all been feeling about being in trials with him, and dying to keep this a secret?”

“Oh, fuck,” whispered Meg, paling.

“It has to know,” said Adam, brow furrowing in concern, “It has to have known already. Since you did,” he added, looking at Philip.

“I thought so as well,” said Philip, laying the sickle across his lap and glancing down at the skull in it for a second thoughtfully, “When it first told me this, about emotions, I thought it would confront me there, and take my memories again. But it did not—I did not even get a hint of insincerity from it, like I was being tested, or under suspicion.”

“It can’t not know,” said Jake, watching him, “There’s just no way.”

“No,” agreed Philip, sighing, “But you said I have done this before.”

“Yeah,” said Meg.

“And at least one time, before this, I tried for a little while to speak to you before finally being reset—with Dwight, in the basement?” he prompted.

The others nodded.

“Then it let me proceed that time as well,” said Philip. He ran his fingers thoughtfully along the spine of the weapon, tracing dried blood. Then he looked up. “I have thought this over carefully, and I think it must know something is going on, but not necessarily what.”

“How?” said Laurie.

“I was not happy before this,” answered Philip, “Before remembering you. I am sure I have felt guilt, and more fear around the Entity than usual, but I am always afraid of it, and have been. I feel guilt, but you all are kind about what has to be done, so it may not be of a strength which lets the Entity know I know the truth.”

“You think he thinks you’re doubting again, but we haven’t won you over,” said Jake.

Philip nodded. “It could make sense. While I do not know how you all must feel dying in these trials with me, I expect you still feel pain and fear, if less despair.”

Jake nodded affirmation.

“That could be attributed to the fact you all have reached me before, and believe you will again. That you are making slow progress,” said Philip.

“Do you really think it believes that?” asked Adam thoughtfully.

Philip shrugged. “It must. Or it would have stopped me. And I have performed well. I have been ruthless, and brought it many sacrifices. I have not confronted it, or tried to fight it, and I have been careful to show no mercy when it watches.”

“Okay,” said Jake, “But that’s still bad, isn’t it? It means it’s just a matter of time before it believes you’re too conflicted about us, and it resets you.”

“Maybe,” replied Philip, “But even if that is the case, you could bring me back again. I still have the note I left myself, with an added note to be careful and control how I feel. Besides, it must be a hassle for it to do this with me so many times. I expect it will hold back until it feels that rewiring me is necessary.”

“I’m sorry,” said Meg, “We try as hard as we can, and you’re still always in danger.”

“I am not the one in danger,” replied Philip, smiling down at her, surprised and maybe amused again by the unexpected response, “You die. Endlessly. I, occasionally, am punished. It is far less terrible.”

“I don’t know,” said Meg, looking over the scars on his arms, and the chunk of his mask that was chipped now above the eyes, just a little to the right of center. “It looks pretty bad. Besides, you have to kill us. That would be really shitty.”

Laurie nodded. She wouldn’t have wanted to be in his role.

“Well,” said Jake, “We can try to control how we feel in trials, but I don’t know if any of us can method act well enough to sell that. We’ll talk it over and try some of it though, and to practice. But whatever we do, we’ll add it slowly. If suddenly we all were in completely different emotional states, that’d be more suspicious than nothing changing at all.”

“Good,” said Philip, “I will do the same.”

There was a bit of a lull, and Philip looked down at the sickle again, and then over at Laurie.

“We’ve still got some time, right? Before we have to leave,” said Meg, “We could talk while we walk around and look for boxes—maybe get some cool new items.”

“I’m sorry,” said Philip, hesitating for a just a moment in the middle of his sentence like he didn’t want to continue, and then going again, “but I should…” He looked over at Laurie again and sighed, then turned back to Meg. “The Entity watched the beginning of this trial, like it might be suspicious after my conversation with it after my last trial,” he continued, “To be safe, I should probably sacrifice all four of you.”

 _Oh,_ thought Laurie, feeling very bad, and tired, and sad, _Because you’re going to talk to him about Quentin, and you don’t want him to think you did it as a favor. But I asked you not to tell them that._

Meg’s face fell. Jake didn’t look very phased, but Adam seemed sobered by the words.

 _I’m sorry,_ thought Laurie. They died all the time, but this specific death was still on her. She’d chosen this. And it was Meg’s first trial with Philip since he’d been back, and she had been so looking forward to that.

“I will not, of course,” said Philip gently, “If you ask me not to. It is, and always will be, your choice. It would be safest, but I would not hurt any of you without your permission. If it is what you decide you want, I will let all four of you leave.”

“No,” said Meg, trying to smile again, “It’s okay. We get it, and we don’t want you to get in trouble and forget us again. But you gotta let me go next time, to be fair.”

Philip nodded solemnly.

“We were all drawn for this trial at the same time as some of the others got a different one,” said Adam, seeming almost relaxed again already. It truly amazed Laurie how collected and level he was, like he always had himself together. “If things had been just a little different, I’m probably would have just died in that one instead. This is still much better. We got lucky.”

“This happened to me yesterday,” shrugged Jake, “It’s no big deal.”

Laurie just nodded wordlessly, afraid the guilt might make it into her voice if she actually answered him.

“Do we got to right now, though?” asked Meg, “That’s not fair. Laurie got to talk to you way longer.”

“No, I have more to tell,” said Philip.

“Really?” asked Jake, genuinely surprised, “That’s a lot already for less than 24 hours.”

“Oh, shit! And we have a lot more to tell you, too! You said Laurie already told you about the Nightmare and the Clown and stuff, but there was another weird trial this morning with the Legion,” said Meg.

“The one you have been speaking with?” asked Philip.

Meg shook her head. “No, two of the others.”

They gave him a brief recap—they being mostly Meg. He seemed both surprised and interested, but not as surprised as Laurie would have expected. After all, before him, unusual behavior like that from a Killer was unheard of. Not to mention the fact that they’d beaten one of them in a fight.

“You didn’t realize we could be beaten?” asked Philip, like it really hadn’t occurred to him to mention that they could before.

“Uh, no,” said Jake, “Everything we try to use as weapons breaks, and you all are—” he gestured at Philip’s towering seven feet of height. “We’ve tried, and barely ever gotten a scratch on someone. How did you know that we _could_?”

“Oh,” answered Philip, a little surprised himself. He looked thoughtful. “It has happened before. But I…” He stopped, and the look on his face went from thoughtful to confused, and then concerned.

“What’s wrong?” asked Laurie.

“I can’t remember,” said Philip hopelessly, eyes still moving fast, like he was sifting internally through stacks and stacks of memories.  “I am certain I have seen one of us…No. No, _I_ have lost before. I have lost a fight…But I can’t…How can I possibly…remember that, and not remember who I…lost to…?”

He bent forward and put his head in his hands. Laurie wasn’t sure if it was because trying to remember hurt, or because he was just trying so desperately to focus.

“You okay?” asked Meg, looking concerned.

“No,” said Philip, lowering his hands. “Yes,” he changed the answer, shaking himself a little. “There was…We used to fight. I remember that. Not each other.” He muttered something under his breath Laurie thought maybe was ‘ _Fuck’_ and then shrugged. “I can’t remember.”

“You’re positive, though?” asked Jake, gaze intent, “You yourself lost a fight to one of us?”

Philip nodded, then slowly stopped. “I guess I cannot be certain, because I don’t remember. For all I know, memories could be planted. Maybe nothing I remember is true. But I feel certain, and—Evan,” he said suddenly, like he was surprised, blinking in the cold light of the living room.

“The Trapper?” asked Adam.

“He was…” Philip was thinking again, a look on his face like something very important did not make sense. “Evan was there, with me,” he said, something like disbelief on his face now, “What had happened to him? How did someone get both of us…”

“’Get’…You got captured?” asked Jake, trying to keep up, watching Philip carefully.

“I think so,” replied Philip, looking over, “I can’t really remember it, but…” He looked down at his chest. The cloak, and brown t-shirt beneath it, and he started to go for the shirt like he was going to take it off, and then he stopped and looked warily over at Meg, who was watching pretty interestedly. “I have a scar,” said Philip instead, letting the t-shirt stay where it was, “I got it then. Which explains why I don’t remember getting it...”

“The big one?” asked Laurie, remembering. It had been huge—most of the front of his chest. A weird spiraling scar, like vines—maybe from a burn, she’d thought. A bad one.

“Yes,” he replied. “I’m sorry, this is unimportant. I can try to remember it on my own time. But we did both lose, once, Evan and I. To one of you—one of the survivors. Not another Reaper. I am…I _think_ I am sure of it.”

“How come you wear a t-shirt the same color as your skin? It makes it look like you aren’t wearing a shirt,” said Meg.

“It’s not the same color,” said Philip, looking at her like he truly had no idea why she would be asking that in the middle of this conversation.

“You know, for a long time I thought you just didn’t have a chest. Like, no nipples,” said Meg.

Philip blinked at nothing, no idea how to respond to that.

“It’s a nice shirt,” said Laurie, feeling bad for him and not realizing until she’d said it that she thought that sounded stupid.

“It’s strange,” said Adam thoughtfully, saving them both from this conversation, “It doesn’t seem like something the Entity would need to make you forget. If you were beaten in a fight by one of us once, wouldn’t it just make you hate us more? Or something you _should_ remember? To help you defend yourself?”

Philip looked over at him and nodded slowly. “It is strange.”

“Any tips on how to beat you guys, then?” asked Jake, “Since it’s doable.”

 _Yes, please,_ thought Laurie.

“I do not think you should pursue that,” said Philip, “If you get good at it, the Reapers will begin to hate you, and hurt you more. Most of them like to fight, but the more the more bloodlust they get, the more vicious they are, and uncontrollable. If something you do gets out of hand, the Entity will do something to make it no longer a problem, and if that means taking limbs from you, so be it.”

“That’s a very good point,” said Adam, “We’re trying to find a way out, not figure out how to occasionally beat one of you to death in a trial. But it would probably be really helpful for us to know, even if we didn’t do it. Just in case we ever needed it—as a last resort.”

“Right,” agreed Jake, “We won’t start throwing down every time, but it would help us if we knew how to fight.”

“I think I may have made it sound a bit easier than it is,” said Philip, backing up a little, “It is _possible,_ but rare. Not unheard of, but almost unheard of. The last time a survivor did that to one of us, the Entity dealt with them itself.”

“You remember?” asked Adam hopefully.

“No, yes,” said Philip uncertainly, “I…heard it get him.”

“You heard it?” asked Meg.

“You don’t want to know,” replied Philip.

“Danger and difficulty understood,” said Jake, “Still. Theoretically, how would we make progress in that area?”

“Well, Reapers are given…very unfair advantages. Not just the weapons, but our abilities. And we are stronger than you,” said Philip thoughtfully, “Without somehow getting our weapon away from us, which would be beyond difficult in almost any scenario, we would be hard to hit. Also, to use a Reaper’s weapon against them is tricky. Some, like the chainsaws or the Cleaver, are unwieldy, or heavy and awkward. Others, like the Spirit’s sword or the Pig’s knife, would be nearly impossible if not entirely impossible to obtain at all. Our weapons are gifts to us, and very personal, and connected. They aren’t meant to be used against us. I don’t think they _can’t_ be used against us, but it would be hard. We know them extremely well, and it is against their nature to harm us. I know that sounds probably stupid to you, because they are simply objects, but—”

“No, that makes a lot of sense,” said Meg, “Plus, nothing about this place is normal. Why would your weapons be? One time I got your sickle because you threw it at me, and I tried to hit you with it, and I swear to god the thing was working against me. It was the same when I got Frank’s knife—except that his knife totally abandoned me and disappeared completely. Your weapon’s not a straight up jackass.”

“Thank you, I think,” said Philip. “The end result being, I think to beat us in a fight, you would have to find a way to cheat. Or we would have to get very unlucky.”

“But Kate just broke the Legion guy’s arm,” said Meg, “Just, with her legs. How does that make sense?”

“I don’t know much about the Legion,” replied Philip, “But how did she do it?”

“With her legs,” repeated Meg.

“No, I meant that she must have already been injured,” said Philip, “Unless something was very wrong with the Reaper. I guess it’s possible he just got very, very unlucky.”

“Uh, she did get injured, right?” asked Meg, looking over at Jake and Adam, “Just fought through it?”

“She’s just tough,” offered Jake, “A fighter.”

“Sometimes you all develop unusual abilities here,” said Philip thoughtfully, “I cannot see the Entity ever allowing any of you to have a skill that was intended to be used to beat one of us, but I have seen souls misuse their skills before, in unpredictable ways, and once something is learned completely, I do not think the Entity is…able to take it back. If it was, there would be no black lock. It becomes…fundamental. Once something is a part of the system, it cannot leave it without breaking things. More can be added, but it is difficult to erase. Does Kate have any abilities that might have helped her break an arm?”

“You think she was, like, beating the system?” asked Meg thoughtfully, “I guess I did sort of do that myself—I almost beat one of them, too. I would have, if his fucking knife worked like your sickle, and wasn’t trapped like a James Bond gun not to work for me. I insta-healed myself and beat the shit out of him.”

“You can heal yourself?” asked Philip, taken aback.

“Oh, yeah,” said Meg proudly, “It was super cool. I like, instantly fixed a bone and un-went blind.”

Philip stared at her.

“What do you mean ‘misuse’, exactly?” asked Jake, “Do you remember any specifics, from someone before us? It seems like most of our skills would be hard things to find a way to hurt someone with.”

“Let me think,” said Philip, “There was a girl, a long time ago. She always seemed to have some little sort of explosive—or, no, maybe it was flairs? I know she used to do something with them that hurt…I’m sorry; it has been a long time. But—I, I promise you, the principle is sound.” He looked suddenly like he was afraid they were all going to think he was full of shit over his memory loss issues, and started to talk faster, flustered. “For example, if you could…if you had something like a shield of some kind that could take a hit for you, then that thing would have been created with the idea behind it that could protect you, if briefly. But that would make it something that could not be broken immediately by a hit from us. Taking that logic in reverse, you could bash someone in the head with it, and it would not break, even if it was not the intended purpose of the shield at all.”

“Like Captain America,” said Meg, “Damn. Mostly I’m good at running really fast and losing people. But Laurie can stab! Maybe that could be something.”

“Laurie _can_ stab,” agreed Jake, looking over at her.

 _It’s not that effective,_ thought Laurie, _Usually people just drop me. I’ve never been able to actually kill someone with a weapon. Or even really hurt them…_ “I can’t win, though,” she said out loud, “I’ve tried.”

“Maybe,” said Philip, “Or perhaps you just have not succeeded yet. Do you want to try?”

“To try to—to kill you?” asked Laurie.

“Well, hopefully not,” said Philip, standing up, “I can heal, but not like you. I can help you practice, but please do not go for an organ that would kill me. Or take a very long time to heal…”

“Shit, yeah! Do it Laurie,” said Meg excitedly, standing up too, “I want to see you learn how to kill people! But like—don’t kill him for real.”

 _Uh,_ thought Laurie uncomfortably, everyone watching her with interest except for Philip, who was just standing there waiting. _Well, I guess it won’t hurt to try._

She stood up and took the sharp rock she had in her pocket out and faced him. Philip put up his hands in a stance like a boxer’s, but a little more relaxed, fingers not quite in fists.

“See if you can stab me,” said Philip.

“I’ve tried before,” said Laurie, “I can, but it won’t hurt you very much.”

“That’s still better than anything the rest of us can do, isn’t it?” asked Adam, who had stood up and moved to a wall to watch, and to give them a little room, “Everything I’ve ever tried to use breaks.”

Laurie blew a piece of hair out of her face and decided _screw it._ She lunged forward on one foot and swung at him, and Philip countered her, moving out of the way before the stone could connect, and catching her forearm in his hand by the wrist.

“What do you think when you do this?” asked Philip as she tried to tug her arm free. It was like trying to pull her arm out from underneath a car tire. “Do you want to hurt me, or are you trying to get free? To win?”

“To get away,” said Laurie, trying to pry his fingers off her arm with her other hand.

“Then I have to have you for you to get away,” said Philip, “I am not letting go. Make me let go.”

 _I’m trying_ , thought Laurie in frustration. She couldn’t get his hand to budge, so she rammed the heel of her foot into his toes.

“Ow,” said Philip, not mocking her, and probably sincerely, but not in enough pain to make him even think about letting go.

“How does that not hurt you more?” asked Laurie in frustration.

“Did you think that it would?” asked Philip.

 _Not really,_ thought Laurie, _I just thought it might distract you._

Over on the windowsill, Jake was watching with intent focus and interest, and Meg was perched on top of the couch now, legs crossed, looking excited. Standing against the wall, Adam looked like he was mentally taking notes.

“Almost everything in this place is about belief,” said Philip, fingers still closed almost painfully tight around her wrist, “Nothing is going to work if you don’t think it will.”

Laurie swung her free fist at him, and he caught it easily. At the same time, she kneed him in the inside of his own knee, and he winced a little, but he didn’t let go. _I don’t fight like this,_ thought Laurie, _I would need a real weapon to fight you like that. Like a knife. Without one, I have to be smart—I have to think—I have to wait for the right second. I can’t beat you like this, you don’t understand!_

She brought the elbow of the hand that didn’t have the rock down against the inside of his elbow, jumping to try and use her bodyweight to make it hurt. Philip was just as fast, and he let go of the hand preemptively and moved his arm out of the way, but at least the hand was free.

 _Come on, think!_ Laurie told herself, _You’re thinking how you’d fight Michael, but he’s not Michael. Michael didn’t care what you were doing, and he didn’t try to stop you. He never does. He just tries to get you. This isn’t like that. Philip’s tactical, like you are. He’s watching you. You can’t hurt him the same way. He’s not Michael. How would you beat Philip? What do I have to do to make him let go?_

Finding a possible answer almost as fast as she’d asked herself the question, Laurie grabbed at his fingers again with the hand she’d just freed. It wasn’t any easier to try and pry them off, but she hadn’t expected it to be. Laurie jumped up then, like she’d seen Kate do sparring with Jake, and locked her legs around his waist. There was a half a second where Philip looked down to try to figure out what she was doing. In it, Laurie let go of the rock with the hand Philip still had a firm grip on, and caught it in the hand she’d been prying at fingers with. She knew he’d have time to stop her if she drew back for a big strike, so she didn’t. Laurie stabbed it in at the inside of his elbow, inches from where the hand was already, and dragged it towards herself, quick, slicing.

“Shit,” said Philip, sucking in a pained breath and letting go of her.

Laurie still had her legs wrapped around him, so without the added balance of weight being held up by his grasp on her arm, Laurie fell onto her back on the ground. It didn’t really hurt though, and when she looked up, Philip was staring at the blood dripping down his arm, and the other three were staring at her. Jake very slowly and quietly clapped a few times.

“Did I hurt you?” asked Laurie.

“Yes,” said Philip, looking away from the bleeding arm to offer her his free hand.

She took it, and he pulled her easily to her feet. She could see it then. A decent cut—not deep, but deep enough to bleed. A lot. and she’d been close to dragging it through a vein. _Oops. Damn it. I—I didn’t really want to hurt him._

It had kind of been exactly what she’d been meaning to do, though—she just hadn’t thought it out.

“That was good,” said Philip, looking sort of proud, although still like he was in some amount of pain, “I didn’t see it coming.”

“But I’ve never done that before,” said Laurie, looking at the blood dripping from his arm, “Are you going to be okay?”

“I got you,” said Meg, still on top of the couch, and patting the seatback beneath her, “Come sit down and I’ll sew you up.”

Philip did almost as she’s instructed, moving in front of the couch and kneeling, holding the arm out. Meg slid down from on top of the couch onto the seat and took his arm in her lap and pulled a needle and thread out of her fanny pack.

“I’m gonna do the most careful job I can, but it’s gonna sting some,” warned Meg.

“I’ve sutured myself before, don’t worry,” replied Philip, “I trust you to do a good job.”

Meg grinned and looked down at the arm, working way more carefully on her stitches than Laurie had ever seen her do—even on herself.

 _Good,_ thought Laurie, relieved and happy for her, _This is probably a banner moment for you. I might have made it so you have to get sacrificed in a couple of minutes, but at least I also made it so you got to take care of him and sew his arm up._

“That was impressive,” commented Jake from the window.

Laurie looked over at him and he gave her an appreciative nod.

“I don’t understand,” said Laurie, turning back to Philip and going to sit down on the floor, arm leaning against the far end of the couch, facing him. “I’ve stabbed people before. A lot worse—I usually try to go for the side—for organs. But I’ve never really hurt anyone, even when I’m trying to.”

Philip looked thoughtful. “You said you do this to escape from us?”

She nodded.

“When was the first time you did it?” he asked.

“Here? Or…before?” asked Laurie.

“Both,” said Philip, surprised by that answer.

“Uh, with mmm, uhm, the Shape,” said Laurie, who had been calling him ‘Michael’ in her head so much recently it was getting too automatic, “Before all this, I stabbed him with a knitting needle, in the neck.”

“He survived that?” asked Meg and Philip at the same time and in almost the same tone.

“Yeah,” said Laurie, “He walked it off. It just sort of slowed him down.”

“That sounds like the Shape,” said Jake.

“That’s horrifying,” said Adam.

“Then, here, my first night, with the Shape again,” said Laurie, “I tore a piece of wood from a broken pallet and stabbed him with it when he tried to grab me. He let go, but, he got me anyway.”

“And me, just now,” said Philip, glancing away from her to watch the work Meg was doing on his arm for a moment, and then back at her, “What were you trying to do?”

“Well, to make you let go,” said Laurie. He waited instead of responding, like that hadn’t been a whole answer. “I…thought I’d have to hurt you to make you let go,” said Laurie after a second. “But—but that’s still not an answer. I _always_ have to hurt people to make them let go, and it never hurts them this much!”

“Did you think it would hurt me as much as it did?” asked Philip.

“I’m…I—I don’t know,” said Laurie, flustered. Everyone was looking at her. Meg had told her not to kill him, and Philip had asked her not to kill him, and everyone had been watching like they thought something amazing was going to happen. She hadn’t thought she was going to _really_ hurt him, but. Well, it had sort of been more like sparring with Jake and Kate than like fighting the Doctor or something. _I was trying to get Philip to let go,_ thought Laurie slowly, _Not the Wraith._ “I was thinking about you like you were like me, I guess,” said Laurie after a second, “Because you seem so much like us.”

“Do you usually think of me as like the Shape instead?” asked Philip, not angry or hurt at all by the question, simply asking, “As something that cannot be stopped by a knitting needle through our neck?”

Laurie nodded slowly.

Philip smiled at her. A real smile, which from him was still a bit of a rare sight. “That is probably why it did not bother the Entity to allow you such a skill. You’re quite fortunate. It’s one that could be misused almost disgustingly past others. I don’t think it stops to consider people changing here when it makes plans. It considers them weakening, of course, and tiring out, but I do not think it knows how to plan for growth, and improvement.”

Laurie looked down at the bloodied rock in her hand, not sure how to think, or feel. _Does that mean I’ve been stupid all this time?_

Maybe. Probably. But it came to her only a moment after that it also meant there was a possibility she could kill the Clown, or the Nightmare someday. Maybe both. That was enough consolation to move past feeling weak, or like a fool.

“Did I hurt you bad?” asked Laurie instead, trying to get a better look at the arm.

“No,” said Philip, “It will heal fast. Thank you,” he added, looking up at Meg.

She was practically glowing, slowly wrapping his arm with delicate care. Really living in the moment.

“Of course,” said Meg, “Gotta look out for you too.”

“Question,” said Jake.

Philip looked up and over at him.

“You said it’s really hard to use your own weapons against you. But what about one Killer’s weapon against another?” said Jake, “I know you all can fight each other. But what if I tried to take off the Hag’s head with the Trapper’s cleaver.”

“If you could lift it,” answered Philip, “I think it would work.”

“I have one too,” said Adam, “If it’s belief in our abilities that makes us so much more successful, how come we can’t use anything here to hurt you all? Except for Laurie. I think I believed pretty strongly that it was going to work the first time I tried to hit something over the head with a branch.”

“For things to work, they need to be believed in, but they also have to follow the rules,” replied Philip very certainly, “You could not just believe very strongly that I would drop dead to kill me. And the rule for trial grounds is that you all cannot make weapons from the objects here, or they will betray you.”

“Ah,” said Adam thoughtfully, “So it’s a technicality that lets it work for Laurie.”

“Yes,” agreed Philip, “Very much like a shield. She stabbed me, but she wasn’t trying to hurt me. She was trying to break free.”

“Defense,” said Jake, “Pure and honest. So, to the Entity, it was never a weapon. That’s some weird fucking logic.”

“I didn’t make the rules,” said Philip, “You are not wrong, though.”

“How did you know all of this?” asked Laurie.

“I…suppose the Entity must have told me, at some point,” said Philip slowly.

“You don’t remember?” asked Meg, tying off the bandage in a little bow.

Philip nodded.

“Is there any way we can help you with that?” asked Meg, scooting over and patting the couch for him to come sit up on it next to her. Which he did, very warily.

It was such a strange sight, the shambles of a tiny living room made way too small by the Entity to be what it was pretending to be, the little chairs, and doorways with no doors, Jake still sitting on a windowsill, Adam close by, and Meg on the couch above her, totally relaxed and grinning, cross-legged beside a seven foot tall man with glowing eyes and a mask of mud and bark, still spattered in a little blood from—well, probably from all of them—all lit by this never-ending dim night, and a too-large moon.

And in a way that was pretty real and true at this point, they were all friends. Her, the girl out of time, Meg, the troublemaking showman, Jake, the reclusive survivalist, Adam, the calm teacher, and Philip, the stolen reaper.

Reaper. That was how Philip always described himself, and the other killers here. While Laurie didn’t think of any of the others as something other than a killer, or a monster, except maybe her brother who was…well, he was that and more—he was his own essay. But Philip’s choice of role description made sense to her for him. It would have felt strange to think of him as a killer, or a murderer, and certainly not a monster anymore—no matter how inhuman he looked. Sure, he had killed them. Still. That night in Haddonfield, Doctor Loomis had shot her brother and saved her life. If that had worked, and Michael were dead, she wouldn’t have thought of Loomis as a killer. Killer sort of meant you were doing it with bad intentions. Even if Philip had killed them, and they hadn’t deserved it, he hadn’t know what he’d been doing was.  ‘Reaper’ was an easier way for her to think about him than as one of the killers.

 _I’m living such a weird life,_ thought Laurie, _It’s been forty years and I’m still running away from my brother, and hanging out with a bunch of teenagers, and now I’m friends with a guy who used to kill me, and I still feel like I’m not a grown-up. When I was seventeen, I felt like I was thirty, and now that I’m sixty, I feel like I’m twenty._

“I don’t think so,” said Philip a little sadly, “I can’t think of anything anyone could do. Whatever I have lost, it’s lost. Some things you cannot get back.”

Jake jumped down off the windowsill and pulled one of the chairs over so it was opposite the couch and sat down on it. Adam followed suit with the chair that was further away, until they had a close little circle.

“You said there were people before us,” said Jake, and he glanced over at Laurie too, “But the only person we’ve really run into here that isn’t in our group is a man Kate met a couple of times. What happened to the rest of them?”

“It can’t be that you let them go,” said Adam slowly, “Laurie has been here for a long time as well. But she’s the only one of us from so far back. But there must have been others, right? We’re all…at least fairly modern. If you are from 1982, and the Shape from 1978, and some of the killers from even earlier, there have to have been more of us. Right?”

There had been others. Laurie had seen them. God, so long ago. They came and went. It wasn’t the first time people had come together, but it was the first time it had been like this for her. Organized, and occasionally happy. Like a family. Before this, things had been different. Fragmented. Everyone was just passing by. She had known others a little bit, as they cycled through, but never for so long. People came, people went, people disappeared for good. She was alone again.

“There were others,” agreed Philip, glancing over at her for a moment and then back and Jake and Adam.

“Are they all dead?” asked Meg.

“No,” said Philip, “But I haven’t seen them in a long time.”

“How do you know they aren’t dead, then?” asked Adam.

Philip was quiet for a second. “The Entity…doesn’t get rid of things,” he said finally, “If something stops being useful in one area, it finds a new use.”

“What kind of ‘new use’,” asked Jake, almost suspicious looking.

“What if someone doesn’t have anything useful left?” asked Laurie.

“I don’t know,” said Philip, answering her question first, “It has never told me that.” He looked over at Jake then. “I don’t know what people are used for when they disappear, either, but it is not death. I am not sure how to describe why I am sure. There is a…feeling. We can feel it—the reapers. There is fear in the air before it happens, and despair. For weeks sometimes. You can feel the vultures circling. But it is very different than the way your people feel usually. We can smell blood and fear and are attracted to it in a hunt, but this is different. We do not like the smell of it. We fear it too, because it is not a scent that attracts us—it is one that brings the Entity. Eventually, it comes. Then the survivor is gone. We don’t see them again, but the feeling lingers. I know they are alive. I have heard them sometimes, in the basement, for weeks after. Maybe then they do die, but whatever happens, I do not think it is so merciful as death.”

The description sent a shiver down Laurie’s spine. She had felt them go too. There would be looks on people’s faces when she passed them in trials, sometimes bitter and full of loathing, sometimes exhausted and broken, past crying about it, like they were already dead. And she eventually knew that when they looked like that, she would only see them a few more times. Laurie had never known why, or where they would go, but it had been final. You could feel it around them. Like they had a black spot on their hand. Dead people walking. There had been so, so many others that she had seen that had just…vanished somewhere along the line. So many faces, all fuzzy now, and the occasional name she had forgotten long since. What had been the name of the big guy? He’d stayed with her for a little while. Curly hair, t-shirt with a rainbow on it. …He…fuck…It was so long ago…no—no, wait, Sujan. It had been Sujan.

“But they have to go somewhere,” said Jake slowly. He shifted, drumming his fingers against his knee. “You can’t just erase someone.”

“I can try to find out,” offered Philip, “But I do not know if it will tell me.”

“Yeah,” said Jake thoughtfully, “Well, one thing at a time. I’m not sure if that’s priority.”

“You said you had more to tell us—back before we got distracted, talking about the Legion,” reminded Adam, leaning forward with interest.

“Oh, yes,” replied Philip, brightening just a little.

Laurie was relieved by the change in topic. She hadn’t thought about Sujan in a long time, because she’d known it would make her sad, and it did. _He used to try to offer to give me backrubs when he could tell I was down. What an idiot,_ she thought, chest aching. Somehow he’d been the type of person who was too genuine for a gesture like that to be creepy, but Laurie still hadn’t trusted him. Not after all the times he’d helped her. And by the time she’d finally decided she liked him, he’d vanished. He never came back.

“You wanted to know more about some of the other reapers, and our selection, our backgrounds, the possibility we may be reachable,” said Philip, “I want to know too—especially if there are others like me, who don’t know what we are. I have not gotten far, but I made some little progress in that.”

“How?” asked Laurie, “Did you ask the Entity why it chose the others?”

“Not directly,” said Philip, “I did not want to see too inquisitive. I have been trying to ask around subjects I want to know, and see if it might offer information on its own. Last night, I was successful. Although, it is nothing big. I simply asked if I was permitted to move around, like we used to. If I could speak to any of the other reapers. It is something I have not done in a long time.”

“What did it say?” asked Meg eagerly, leaning closer.

“It said that there were some I could, and some I could not,” replied Philip, “I am free to visit Evan if I wish, or the Clown.” Philip looked disgusted. “The Pig, the Doctor. Mostly people it knew I would not want to get near anyway. Many of the others, as I already knew, would be dangerous. The Huntress is feral, the Hillbilly is vicious and nearly feral himself, as is the Cannibal. The Shape is…dangerous, and the Nightmare is avoided by us all. In addition, the new Spirit is not human, or approachable. So, I asked it why it had chosen reapers like the Huntress, who were feral, and would not listen to reason from it. It seemed like the least suspicious question about its choices I could ask.”

“Smart,” said Adam.

“It didn’t mention the Legion?” asked Meg.

“No,” replied Philip, “Or the Nurse or Hag.”

“What did it say about choosing feral killers?” asked Adam.

“It told me that they were ideal for such a role, because they were given unfair lives before this. It is mercy to give them a chance at giving their life meaning, and because of their wildness, they will not falter. The Entity said that people like me, who had both the determination for the role and the strength to carry through with it as regular humans were preferable, but unusual,” replied Philip.

“It’s pretty good at making answers that sound reasonable,” commented Adam thoughtfully.

Philip nodded. “It is. So, I asked about the Huntress and the Hillbilly—about their lives. I cannot know if it told me the truth, but it did answer me.”

“What did it say?” asked Meg, excited, eyes big and shiny, expectant.

“Again, it could be lying—I wouldn’t know,” said Philip cautiously. He always seemed to Laurie like he was deathly afraid of lying to them unintentionally, or giving them something false to believe in. Like that could really hurt them, considering the lives they had. Still, it was sweet. “But,” continued Philip, “it told me that the Hillbilly was imprisoned by his parents, because he was born deformed. Locked up in a little room, chained to a wall. If it is true, I cannot understand why his parents did not simply kill him. That would have been despicable, but more merciful than what they chose.” There was pity in his voice as he spoke.

“Were his parents who he killed?” asked Meg.

“Yes,” said Philip, looking up, “Among others. I’m not sure, exactly. All the Alledjenu told me was that he broke free and got vengeance on those who had wronged him, and went wild—tearing up anything he could find. It said it gave him a better purpose here—saved him. Took him somewhere he would be hurting the people he should, owed vengeance now ready to be paid indefinitely.”

“It’s very good at that,” said Adam again, lacing his fingers together like Philip had earlier and leaning forward, engrossed, “And the Huntress?”

“She grew up alone in the woods after her family died,” said Philip, “I don’t know more detail about her early life. Simply that she was barely old enough to survive, and did, improving skills her mother had given her and becoming a fine huntress. She grew up like an animal herself—wild. Eventually, she began to claim human lives.”

“How did it spin bringing her here as a kind act?” asked Adam.

“It brought her here because she could not understand how to be a human correctly after growing up wild,” answered Philip, a disgruntled look on his face, “She was alone, and not malicious—simply feral, so bringing her here gave her a second chance. She kills those sent to her to be killed, and is happy now. She will not be hunted down for killing without realizing it is wrong, she will not continue to kill innocents.”

“Two birds with one stone,” finished Adam.

“Exactly,” said Philip. “I tried to learn their names, but that was difficult. The Entity does not call any of us by our names except rarely. When it does, it is usually a sign you have committed a grave error.”

“And the Cannibal? Or the Shape—did it say anything about choosing them?” asked Adam.

“No,” said Philip, “I tried to learn more, but I think that to it, two examples was more than sufficient.”

 _Good,_ thought Laurie. She didn’t really want to know why that thing had grabbed her and her brother. The answer would probably be _“He was born a mindless killing machine who stops at nothing and never gets tired,”_ which wasn’t even true, and Laurie didn’t want to hear some self-righteous explanation for turning him into a recyclable weapon here.

“Well, did it say anything about the Huntress and kids?” asked Meg, “We think she tried to kidnap two of us to keep as like, her own kids.”

“Yes,” said Philip, “I was told that. But it did not tell me anything relating to children, and I thought to ask it outright would be too suspicious—too many questions out of nowhere for one day. I’m sorry. I did find out some on my own, though.”

“You did?” asked Meg and Adam at the same time, surprised.

“The layout of our realms changes very often,” said Philip, “But for a little while, the Huntress’s area has been beside mine. I walked there. I could not get in—I am sure the Entity knew that if I could, she would attack me, and did not want us to fight, but I saw her. I have seen the other reapers many times. They work, they rest, often we do nothing. Just wait. I have seen her before, plenty of times. Usually, she hunts. I do not know if there is game to hunt in her home, or if she just practices, but that and harvesting supplies is all I have ever seen the Huntress do. This time, she was making things.”

“Making things?” asked Meg.

“Doors,” said Philip.

The others stared at him. Whatever answer they had been expecting, ‘doors’ had not been it—not for any of them.

“She was making doors,” repeated Philip, “For her house.”

“…” Jake started to say something and then stopped. He glanced over at Laurie. The look on his face said _‘That can’t be good.’_

“Anything…else?” asked Meg slowly, voice squeaking a little. She cleared her throat.

“Yes, judging by the damage to her trees, but she had already finished whatever it was,” replied Philip. And then, after a moment of uncomfortable silence, “If it is any consolation, I think she has little experience with woodworking. The doors will probably not be strong.”

“Well, that’s something for sure,” said Jake, “Thank you. Especially getting all this so quickly.”

Philip nodded. “I’m sorry it’s not much. I am trying to find out when and how it decides it is time to claim a new reaper or a new victim, but that is slower. I have asked questions leading in that direction, and it always changes the topic. I know it’s what you need to know, but I am afraid that if I push it, I will be going too far.”

“We understand,” said Meg, “You gotta make sure you don’t get in trouble. That’s the first priority.”

Philip smiled at Meg, and Laurie felt guilty again. _It’s unavoidable. It has to be done, and he might be okay. He has a plan._

“We should probably get going, huh?” said Jake, standing up, “We’re about to be slipping into ‘dangerously long trial’ territory, and we don’t want to draw attention. Come on, let’s get it over with.”

“Do we have to?” asked Meg mournfully.

“Don’t be wuss about it,” said Jake, “You know we have to.”

“I’m not a wuss!” protested Meg.

“Great,” said Jake, “You can go first then.”

Meg stuck her tongue out at him and then turned to Philip. “Okay, but I want you to make sure you pick me for a trial again soon, okay? Even if that means I have to be the one sacrificed again. We spent the whole time talking about important stuff, and I know that’s the idea, but it’s not fun for you. You can only come see us every so often, so whenever we see you, we should at least get to spend a little of the time just hanging out and having fun. Chatting. Non-strategy stuff.”

“That would not be practical,” said Philip, smiling at her again.

“So?” said Meg, “Who cares. You’re all alone most of the time. You should get to live a little. Oh! Laurie didn’t tell you how Claudette saved Quentin! Well, and Adam—Claudette and Adam,” she added, grinning at Adam.

Adam shook his head at her and smiled, standing himself. Meg and Philip walked out the door ahead of them, Adam behind, her and Jake last, and ahead of her Laurie could hear Meg enthusiastically recounting yesterday’s events.

 _It really was amazing,_ thought Laurie, still a little shaken up, _She’s something else._

Philip looked like he felt much the same. There was a lightness and a brightening of his expression Laurie hadn’t really seen before, and he looked proud and impressed and interested, listening. Commenting occasionally, to ask a question or remark on the intelligence of something one of them had done. Like it was amazing.

But then, it had been.

“I am very glad he lived,” said Philip, and Laurie could see he meant that, “He has always been kind.”

“Oh, me too,” said Meg in intense agreement, “I was terrified the whole time. I would have been useless on my own. God, if it wasn’t for Claudette…”

“She is really quite incredible,” said Philip to Meg, almost in wonder.

“Yeah,” agreed Meg, “Claude’s about the best there is.”

“’Claude’?” asked Philip, “You call her that?”

“Yeah,” said Meg like ‘ _Why?’_

“She likes it?” asked Philip, like he kind of doubted that.

“Of course,” said Meg, “It’s a fun nickname.”

“Hmmm,” said Philip, who didn’t seem to be buying it.

“What would _you_ call her?” asked Meg, miffed.

“’Claudette,’” replied Philip.

“As a _nickname,_ ” stressed Meg.

“Why do you have to give her one at all?” asked Philip, “Besides, there are always features—”

“Because it’s fun, Phil,” said Meg, grinning straight ahead.

“Don’t call me that,” said Philip tiredly.

“Philly?” asked Meg.

“No,” said Philip.

“Lips?” she tried.

“Again, no,” said Philip, walking towards a specific hook now.

“Ojojo?” asked Meg.

“No—that’s even worse,” replied Philip, shooting her a look.

“Joe,” she offered.

“It’s ‘Philip’,” he replied.

“JoMaha,” said Meg.

“I would rather be called ‘Wraith,’” said Philip.

“Leave him be,” said Jake, “Come on. Time to go home.”

“Okay, fine,” said Meg, sighing and stopping in front of the hook to shook Jake a look, “But you’re on fuckin’ thin ice, Jayjay.”

“If you _ever_ call me that again, I’m leaving you for dead in trials from here on out,” said Jake, voice completely deadpan.

_Just don’t say anything. Stay out of it, and the nickname danger for you stays at zero. You’ve heard it all before. ‘Laura,’ ‘Lauren,’ ‘Lo,’ ‘Lahw-ree,’ which isn’t even shorter, it’s just worse._

She kept a couple feet back, behind Adam.

“You are ready?” asked Philip, voice serious now.

Meg nodded, and he stooped and placed his hands at her waist, ready to lift her.

“Hey,” said Meg quickly, grabbing his shoulders tight. He stopped, looking at her expectantly, a little concerned. “You’re gonna be okay, right?” asked Meg, “Until I see you again?”

Philip nodded.

“You know I like you, right?” asked Meg.

He nodded again, expression sincere. Almost smiling, but a little sad.

“Okay,” said Meg, taking a breath and closing her eyes tight, “Do it.”

He did, running her through the metal hook incredibly fast, and she screamed and writhed, clutching at the metal in her shoulder, and Laurie felt a shudder run down her spine and saw Philip blanche as he stepped back.

“I’m okay,” said Meg weakly, trying not to sound like it hurt as much as Laurie knew from plenty of her own experience it definitely did.

“I’m sorry,” said Philip, knowing too. He turned to go. The three of them followed him more slowly this time. Sobered.

“Hey!” called Meg.

Philip paused and turned to look back at her. The other three of them turned too.

“I know you’re too old for me,” said Meg, smiling at him somehow in spite of the massive pain Laurie knew she had to be in, “But if we’d been the same age, you’d have fallen for me, right?”

She’d caught him off guard again, and Philip smiled and sort of shook his head—but not like a ‘no’, just like he didn’t know what to think.

“You ask me questions that are very difficult to answer, did you know that?” said Philip.

She grinned. “Is that a yes?”

“I think we would always have been friends,” said Philip. “Beyond, who knows. You would have had to get used to my bad taste in shirts.”

“Oooh, that might be a deal-breaker,” said Meg. “You guys gotta go, though.”

It was true. Eventually, the Entity would appear here, and they couldn’t be seen standing around talking like friends. Philip nodded and started off again, the others following.

“I’ll miss you!” called out Meg from behind them, “’Till next time, okay?”

Philip paused and turned back one last time. “Until next time,” he replied a little stiffly, like it was hard to say, and then he turned and moved towards another hook, not looking back again.

When they reached it, Adam sighed and stepped forward. “I may as well.” He glanced over at Philip. “Is there anything you would like us to tell the others for you, or to bring you next time if we can?”

Philip thought for a second, and for just a moment his expression brightened, and then it sunk again. “The guitar made it?” he asked after a second, like it didn’t really matter.

“Yes,” said Adam, “It was good timing. We all had a rough day yesterday, but Kate’s been playing it. Helped us get through the night, and cheered everyone up. I know she wants to thank you herself, so I won’t do it for her, but you made her very happy.”

Hearing that, Philip looked just a little better again, and he nodded.

“I’m ready when you are,” said Adam, waiting in front of the hook.

This time, Laurie looked away. She still heard the scream though.

 _Still. It isn’t as bad when you know it’s coming,_ she told herself, _That’s good. That’ll help._

The two of them remaining walked down the street together in silence after Philip, backs turned to Adam and Meg, rounding a corner and losing sight of them completely when they reached the front of the preschool.

“Is it okay if I go last?” asked Jake as they came to a stop beneath another hook, “There’s something I want to talk to Philip about, alone.”

Laurie nodded, wondering what it was, but knowing that meant he didn’t want to tell her, and respecting the decision.

“Okay,” said Laurie. She turned to Philip, then glanced at Jake for a second. “Actually, if you don’t mind, I want to talk to him about something alone first, too. Can you wait?”

“Sure,” said Jake, “I’ll go off by the far exit and wait there.”

He left, no questions, no further comments, and in a second Laurie and Philip were alone.

Philip turned to her and waited.

“Thank you for doing this. To help Quentin,” said Laurie, “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s alright,” said Philip, sounding like he meant it, “It’s finally something I can do for you all that might actually matter.”

As soon as he’d said that, he looked like he regretted it. Like he hadn’t meant to.

“You don’t think the other stuff will help?” asked Laurie. It was how she felt, to be honest.

“I don’t know,” said Philip quietly, looking like he felt very bad, “It just…doesn’t feel like much.”

They’d both been there a long time. Laurie recognized something in the expression. “No, it doesn’t,” she agreed softly, “To us. But it does to them, and I’ve been wrong before. A couple of times now.”

Philip looked up and smiled. “I suppose so have I. More than once, and badly.”

“Let’s hope we’re wrong again,” said Laurie with a smile, doing her best to believe they might be.

They were quiet for a second. Both thinking.

“Is it really hard for you, talking to the Entity?” asked Laurie. She wasn’t sure why, but something about the way he talked about it, compared to the way he talked about everything else. Not exactly fear, either. Something…different.

“Yes,” replied Philip, glancing off behind them, back towards the people on hooks they couldn’t see, then back at her. “It is complicated. It is a liar, and a monster, and it used me. I feel no affection or loyalty to it, but at the same time, it was a god to me. Even if it was all a lie, I thought of it like a guardian. I thought it was my companion—my only companion, for a long time. I believed it wanted what was best for me, and I owed it everything. I cared for it, deeply, in a way. For a very long time. Even when you no longer feel something like that towards someone you thought you knew, it is hard to forget.”

“Yeah,” said Laurie quietly, the wind ruffling her hair and his cloak as they faced each other, “I sort of know how you feel.”

He cocked his head slowly, curious, and the motion was so exactly like her brother that it was like a strike across the face.

She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t ask her to. Laurie wasn’t sure if she’d been thinking of saying something else, or asking him something, but she’d lost the ability to now, so it didn’t matter.

“I’m sorry then,” said Philip after a moment, “It is painful.”

“I’m sorry for us both,” said Laurie, “For the time we’ve lost.”

“We found people, though,” said Philip contemplatively, “Even someone like me.”

“We did,” said Laurie.

“I do not deserve any of the mercy I have been shown by you,” said Philip, “Much less the kindness, or friendship. No matter what you all think of me, I know what I have done. I know it is true. But I will try to earn it. If I fail here—if things do not change, and you lose me again, once you get me back, tell me what I have promised, and I will do what I can. I will at least kill the Clown. I swear it. And if I live long enough before the Entity finds me, I will face the Nightmare.”

“Take me with you,” said Laurie, the wind that was passing through her blowing her hair out behind her and ruffling her clothes, but not making her cold for once, just background noise, “If it comes to that, promise to let me try.”

He tilted his head again, and it still hurt the second time, but she tried to swallow the emotion. “You will die,” said Philip.

Laurie raised her sharpened rock, still red with Philip’s blood. “No,” she said, “I won’t. At least not without company. I’ve fought worse.”

Philip nodded slowly. “I promised to help you do whatever you ask. If that is truly what you want, I believe you. We will go together.”

Laurie smiled. Felling like a massive weight had been lifted off of her chest and she could breathe again.

“Good,” she said, “And please—” Laurie shot out a hand and caught his wrist, and he paused in the motion he’d started to grab her, and met her eyes, “Try to come back okay.”

“I will,” said Philip, “I don’t want to forget. You have my word.”

Laurie let go of his arm and relaxed then, her work finished. “I believe you. I’m ready, then. Then send me home.”

 

* * *

 

 

_This will be fine. Everything will be okay._

Philip stood in the middle of the old garage, facing the cold night sky and thinking hard about what he was supposed to do. Finally, he took a long breath and held it for a few seconds, then exhaled, letting the forcibly slowed motion calm him.

“Iska?” called Philip to the sky, “There is something I think you should hear.”

It felt so strange to call it that now, like it was a good spirit—a protector. But he could hardly call it an Alledjenu to its face—after all, it knew what that meant. It was the Entity itself who had suggested Iska as a title.

Philip tried to make the name feel right—tried to feel the way he used to about the Entity, and he partially succeeded, but in its own way, that was worse. It was horrifying how quickly and gladly his mind was willing to slip into old patterns and believe in them again.

 _What are you?_ wondered Philip, trying not to feel the desolation that came with those words, _How did you know so exactly what to tell me to make me believe in you? Why didn’t you just take me, like you took the others. Break me. I know I would have tried to resist, but I know what I am not, and I am not that strong. I would have broken like any of the others, in time, and done this anyway. Become what you wanted, forgotten how to feel. Was it just easier? Do you enjoy watching me do this, knowing how much it would destroy me to find out the truth? Why?_

Philip had to stop, because he had to be in control of how he felt, and he couldn’t keep thinking like that and not feel the pain that came with it. _Put on a brave face,_ he told himself, _Treat it like the god you thought it was._

There was a heaviness in the air, like storm clouds rolling in, and the sky darkened around him, lowering visibility to nothing in the fog. The air became thick, and charred, like the middle of a burning building, and Philip could barely make out his hand on the hood of the car anymore. Then it was there, the Entity, above him in the sky.

Philip knelt, feeling more fear than he knew he should, and trying to beat it down. _If you fear, it will see through you, and you will die. Feel something else. Feel hatred for the Clown, feel confusion, feel proud you caught it breaking the rules, you have to not be so afraid._

He tried. He tried, but fear was such a hard thing to control, and he felt frozen on the ground.

“Wraith,” said the voice in the sky, waiting.

“I am sorry to bother you,” said Philip, head bowed, “But it may be important.”

He stood then, trying not to feel shaky, trying not to think about what the thing in the sky could do to him.

“The souls in my trial acted strangely,” said Philip, voice a little uncertain.

“Oh,” said the Entity, waiting, but there was something behind the voice too. A readiness.

_Don’t mess up. Think of your irritation and rage, think of the Entity as a friend. Right now, it is. It can save them. You cannot._

He tried.

“They have been doing odd things I have not been surprised by for weeks now,” continued Philip, “Trying to beg for their lives. To give me gifts, or tell me I know them.” The truth. The best lies always have an element of truth to them. A foundation to build with. That’s what made them hold up.

“Yes,” said the Entity again, and whatever had been in its voice before was still there, but stronger now. It was like looking down a drawn bow, or a loaded gun.

“That is not unexpected,” continued Philip, “They would do anything to save themselves. But today was different.”

The Entity shifted above him, and for a moment Philip thought it was already over. That it had tired of waiting to hear what he would say, but it didn’t act. Just waited there, intense ash and fog swirling about him slowly, like someone’s idea of a hurricane—the right motion, but too slow. Far too slow for a wind to really move. Almost static.

“They ran from me at first, like they usually do, and then they hid,” said Philip, “They often do that, if things are not going well for them, but instead of proceeding with caution, they all came back to me at once, on their own. Shouting,” said Philip, “Asking me to tell you that the Nightmare almost killed one of them. Not while in a trial with him, but outside—like we are forbidden to. And they are think he will try it again.”

It was surprised. Philip had almost never seen something he might have interpreted as surprise from the Entity, but it was there now. Whatever it had been expecting him to say, that had not been it.

“I would usually not tell you anything so unimportant—especially something I was asked to tell you, by one of them,” said Philip quickly, and apologetic, because he knew that’s how he would have said it before. The old Philip would have thought he might be wasting time, would want the Entity to know he wouldn’t have mentioned this if it hadn’t seemed important. “But it did not make sense to me,” he continued, looking up into the black storm about him, “They were angry about this, and easy to hunt—they just kept coming back to me. The whole group barely attempted to survive at all—I was able to sacrifice all four easily. They were desperate, wanting me to hear that more than to make it out alive. I can’t understand why they would do it if it were not true—it did not make me falter, or slow. There is no way acting like that could have helped them to escape. I’m sorry if I am wrong to have told you, but I know that the Nightmare is prone to…break orders, and I thought you might want to know this.”

“It is,” replied the Entity after a moment. The storm around Philip moved, not weakening or strengthening, just shifting. Changing form. “What did they say?” asked the Entity.

“They said the one the Nightmare hunts—the boy—that it found a way to force him to sleep, outside of its own trial, and almost killed him. Only a matter of hours ago. Around the time I last had a trial,” said Philip, trying to find a good way to work the Clown in, because he knew that he was already lucky to have gotten this far, and if he was going to lose the Entity now that he had its attention, that would probably be where, “There was another trial at the time,” continued Philip, trying to edge his way into dangerous territory.

“There was,” replied the Entity, tone difficult to read.

“They said that the Clown drugged him to help the Nightmare, and tortured the rest of them. They even claim one of them killed the Clown and the rest of them, in an explosion. Which should be impossible,” continued Philip, “But I did not know why they would lie. And if the Nightmare is hunting outside of trials, I thought I should…”

Philip prayed that it would sense his distaste of the Clown at take that as motive, but the storm was so intense around him. The wind didn’t move him at all, or make it hard to hear, but it was like being on the last patch of ground untouched by a wildfire—surrounded on all sides. If the storm broke…

“The Clown,” said the Entity, voice almost disbelieving.

“I know,” said Philip quickly, terrified by the intense tautness in the sky above him. “He does not seem like he usually would do such a thing, but I thought you should know, in case it was true. It should be possible for you to find out?”

There was nothing but silence above him, and there was a flicker in the sky.

“Hmmm,” said the Entity finally, voice immensely displeased.

 _Shit._ “I’m sorry. If I should not have brought this to your attention—I was only,” said Philip quickly, hoping to stave off some of its fury.

“The Clown did request that boy specifically in his last trial,” said the Entity, like it hadn’t noticed Philip was speaking at all, “And my Clown was killed, which does not happen. I see that the boy nearly died.”

Philip had never heard it sound so mad. It was a deep, horrible, cold anger. Almost emotionless. The kind of anger you could only pick up if you already knew its voice, but Philip did, and even though the rage was not directed at him, he felt petrified by it. The tone was fatal. This thing around him could kill him so, so easily if it wanted to. The way it had said “My” alone was so horribly full of power and lethality that Philip was afraid suddenly, in the shadow of its intense fury, that if he spoke to it at all, it would turn him to dust.

“I will look into this,” said the Entity after a moment, and suddenly the storm around them slackened.

Philip almost choked on the relief as he felt able to breathe again.

“Why did they think you would tell me?” asked the Entity, and he felt it shift to look at him, even though it had no face.

“I am sorry—should I have not?” asked Philip, the fear right back.

It was silent for a moment, just watching him. “No,” it said after a moment, “You did well, my Wraith.”

Philip had never felt so relieved. He bowed his head again, thanking everything that against all odds, this seemed to have worked.

“I will see what happened, and it will be dealt with,” said the Entity.

Philip’s head was still bowed, but he felt one of the metallic talons come to rest on his chest and he looked up, frozen by the touch.

“You will be rewarded,” said the Entity, “But you should take care to be merciless in your next trails. It would be unfortunate if they assumed because of this that your resolve was weakening.”

“I will not hesitate,” answered Philip, trying not to think about the warm metallic sharpness against his ribcage, trying not to feel afraid.

It seemed to accept that, and he felt its presence leaving, then. It slowly drew back the claw, and around him the frozen storm abated and the fog lifted, bringing back his ability to see his surroundings. The darkness in the sky contracted, seeping back into itself. More important things, now, to do.

“Be careful, Wraith,” came the Entity’s voice as its presence was almost gone, “You must have given them a reason to appeal to you. See it does not happen again.”

Then Philip was alone.

He slumped against the hood of the car, back against it, arm resting on the edge, heart thudding.

 _I will,_ thought Philip, _I will be as careful as I can._

It was hard to believe he’d made it. He had been so sure, walking into this, that at best it would believe him and wipe his mind, at worst he wouldn’t even get the whole story out. _I did it,_ thought Philip slowly, _I might have helped them._

What now, then? There wasn’t much to do but wait and see.

 _And think,_ thought Philip, remembering so many questions earlier he had felt like he knew the answers to without any proof, and then, glancing down at his arm, Philip thought _Thank God it isn’t the kind of observant a person is. Stupid of me—I got lucky it didn’t notice the bandaged arm._ Philip could have lied about how he got it, and he had bandaged himself before, but he wasn’t the sort of person to tie gauze off in a bow.

Probably, though, that wasn’t something it _would_ notice. He doubted the Entity really paid attention at all to what they looked like, much less cared.

 _What happened to me?_ wondered Philip, _And Evan?_ He could ask him, technically, but there was no way Evan would tell him, even if he did remember—he’d probably just mock him over it, and the Entity might find out. Too big a risk.

Still.

Philip pulled off his shirt and looked down at the huge scar over his chest. Massive. He ran his hands slowly along it, trying so hard to remember.

_What happened to me? What can’t I remember this? Why was Evan there?_

Usually, places where Philip had no memory, he simply had…well…no memory. None at all. But here, there were tiny fragments. He could see himself, chained to a wall—looking at his arms. Looking at Evan, in the same place.

It was weird to find memories here—and more than he’d expected. These were things he should never have forgotten—who would forget being chained to a wall? But there was no memory of how he had gotten there, or where he went after. Nothing to ever cause him to access the memory, until today, when he’d almost tripped over it. Like a little piece of debris left behind where it would not be found, in the middle of a wreck. It felt like suddenly remembering part of an old dream. But, whatever this was, it had been real, hadn’t it? He could see images in his head clearly.

 _What the fuck?_ thought Philip, taking in the mental image and seeing things he hadn’t before. _No, that has to be wrong. He does not look like that._ Evan always had chunks of metal sticking out of him, but not that many.

 _I’m remembering it wrong,_ thought Philip, _I have to be._

There was something else, though. The memory kept going, and he saw Evan lunging at his restraints, trying to break them. Philip wondered why he wasn’t doing the same. Maybe he was, though—maybe the memory was wrong, or false. He couldn’t depend on what he remembered anymore.

He tried to keep remembering anyway, wanting to know, and he watched Evan tear his arms free from the wall and go to reclaim his cleaver, which was laying on a table, looking off for some reason. Philip felt himself move—thought he was saying something, because Evan looked back at him. He didn’t answer though. He left—he started to leave. Philip saw his own body lunge then, trying to break free and go after him, but he couldn’t. In his memory, Philip looked down and saw to his alarm that he was hurt—hurt wasn’t even the right word for it. His chest was so badly damaged he wasn’t even sure how he had still been alive. He looked back up and called out again, and across the room, Evan paused in the doorway and glanced over his shoulder and said something short, but there was no sound in the memory for Philip to hear, and then Evan turned his back and left. Left him there.

 _He fucking left me behind?_ thought Philip, feeling suddenly very sure that is what he was watching happen, and furious about it, _You left me there?_

He didn’t even know where ‘there’ was, but it didn’t matter. They had never been friends, but they were both reapers. Philip wouldn’t have left Evan. _Why? Why did you…_

Philip sat back down and leaned his head against the car, hand still on his chest, trying to remember.

Whatever had happened in that place, it had been bad. It had happened—it had to have, because Philip still had the scar. That was proof—wasn’t it? He’d been there, and he’d lived through it. But what had happened? He needed to know that, but it wasn’t the only thing bothering him now.

Philip opened his eyes and looked up at the moon, wishing he could remember. Trying. It felt like it had been so important.

_If you left me to die, how did I get out?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I worked this spring with a really nice woman from Nigeria named Charity who told me that, depending on which of two tribes he was from, there were two possible pronunciations for Philip's last name, "Ojomo," but the most likely one would be "Oh-Joe-Mah".   
> In his description of his own shroud, there is a quote from Vigo about how he is only now learning to bend the rules of the fog, and the rules themselves are irrefragable. This is in keeping with comments from the developers about how survivors can learn to use the Entity's power against it, and the existence of things like the black lock. All of the realms are created by the Entity out of the memories of people who it has taken, and to at least some degree for every one of them, that is also how it allows them to physically function in its realm. For example, Killer addons are always personal, and related in one way or another to how the person themself thinks of their abilities. For someone like Freddy Krueger, who is fueled by memories, the addons are keepsakes he uses to focus his power. Jesse's shirt from when he was four makes dreams harder to wake up from, taking one of Nancy's old sketches increases his power, Quentin's empty pill bottle from the year he came back to Elm Street makes him impossible to see while falling sleep, and leaves them vulnerable. His old box of photographs of the things he did at the preschool lets him drag his favorite survivor into the dream at the start of a trial, before he even finds them. In contrast, the Huntress, whose abilities are entirely learned and not supernatural, uses practical addons. Poisons that help slow down prey she hits, belts to hold extra hatchets, and a few personal items to motivate her, like a handkerchief belonging to one of the children she tried to keep who died. While not entirely logical in all of their uses, everything she is given by the fog is built on the Entity's grasp on her own understanding of her prowess. For the Wraith, who had no killer past, his addons are all related to traditional magic, not a personal history of violence. They are symbols he can draw on the wailing bell in ink or blood, to increase the new supernatural powers he has been given, which he never had before. It's slightly different for every killer, based around their motivations and their understanding of their own ability--I won't go on, but it's some pretty interesting stuff. Perks are the same. Based on natural ability. Freddy's are all based around the endgame and not letting people escape, Philip's are about being a good tracker. The Huntress is territorial, and some of her perks involve that, but she is also so naturally and instinctively a hunter even before this that she has one of the most fascinating perks--the ability to completely cut ties to the Entity by sheer force of focus during a chase. Imagine the strength of will for a killer to be able to do that.
> 
> Similarly, survivors develop abilities based on their perception of their own skills in life before this. They are also able to learn skills from each other, and experience in the realm. Claudette is a healer, able to take care of herself and others, and sense when people are in need. Kate is a fighter, able to sense good escapes, fight hard when grabbed, and be hard to catch in tight spots. Perks obviously aren't the only thing a survivor could potentially misuse to try and work against the Entity, but they're definitely one of them. Kate's perk Boil Over is described as, "You are a battler and do everything to escape a foe's grasp. Your struggling effects on the Killer are increased." Laurie's Decisive Strike is listed as, "Using whatever is at hand, you stab at your aggressor in an ultimate attempt to escape." While clearly neither of these very useful abilities were /intended/ to be used to beat the absolute shit out of someone, god does that wording leave a lot of wiggle room. Although the Entity would never intentionally give someone a skill that could cause it massive trouble later, its shortcoming seems to be that for all its intelligence, it doesn't really understand humans that well. We, as a group, kind of love bending rules.
> 
> This chapter is a little bit of a break after so much action. I really hope you all enjoy it! Thank you all again to everyone who reads. It's seriously incredibly meaningful. More to come soon.


	45. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane receives an odd request. Some of the survivors face an unusual trial.  
> One good day comes, and ends.

Four days was a long time.

Not to most people, or in most situations. On a vacation or a break, a span of time like that tended to barely feel like any time at all. And yet, back-to-back graveyards shifts could leave you feeling like you’d had the longest ninety-six hours in existence.

Mostly though, a chunk of time like that was just routine. Not fast or endless. Just time. But these four days had been different.

For everyone.

The first day had been long, and awful for Jane, but a little better towards the end. Quentin had almost died the night before, and that had still been hanging over everyone the next morning. This was something Jane had only been partially aware of. It was something Quentin had been infinitely aware of.

For Jane, though, that first day had just been an incomprehensible crashing together of too many things at once. It had been like living in a constant state of collision. Everything high-speed and jarring and deadly and horrible. She had been hurt, badly, by her mother the night before, and then in this new place, a young man that was two men at once had cut her arm so deeply she could see the bone in it, and she had watched a boy she had wanted to help bargain his life away so she and a man she had just met could walk free.

Then Jane had died. She had been killed by a chainsaw. Nothing had ever hurt more than that, and she still thought about it, unable to even understand how she could have felt so much pain now that it was over. It was indescribable.

The girl she kept getting stuck with had been horrible, and everyone else had been friendly and way too sure of Jane’s talents, and she had been hit on far more than she would have thought possible in a handful of hours in a place like this. And then, Jane had lived. She had made it through a trial. And she had made a friend. Sort of. At least, that’s how Jane interpreted the sort of aggressive and brash companionship she had gotten from Feng ever since.

That was four days ago now. Since then, Jane had been strangled to death by a woman ghost with a bag over her face, sacrificed on a hook four times, and lived once. There had been the man with the traps again—he’d sacrificed her on her second day, and that had been awful. After that, there had been a woman with a mask like a Pig, and everyone had told her after they were so relieved for her she’d just been sacrificed, because apparently what the Pig usually did was so much worse. There was another ghost, like a young girl, torn up and wielding a sword, and Jane had gotten her twice in a row—died in the first and lived through the second, with a decent amount of help from Kate and Ace. They’d lost Feng’s girlfriend Nea, though, and Jane still wasn’t sure how you were supposed to feel about that—about living when not everyone made it. Her last trial had been with a terrifying man in a white mask. That had been her shortest trial. She’d never even seen him coming.

It was hard to feel like this was actually _progress,_ but technically, Jane was getting better. She was still _dying,_ almost every single time, but she could tell she was improving, and Dwight—who had been unlucky enough to get stuck in two of her trials with her—had commented on how she was picking up the basics fast. It had made her feel better to hear that, because it wasn’t like the things everyone else said. –He’d actually been there, and noticed something she had done, and not just vague blanket improvement. Dwight had noticed something that she specifically knew he was actually right about. One of the hardest things for them, according to Dwight and several of the others, was setting off a generator when a killer was close, and not being spotted shortly after while trying to get away from the loud, bright disturbance they’d just caused, but this was something Jane was already very, very good at doing. She wasn’t sure _why_ she found that part easier than most of them did. It was just that accomplishing a goal like lighting a generator made her feel calmer, and more assured, and she just…did a better job for a minute, feeling more confident about her abilities, as far as Jane could tell. Still, even if that one seemed to mostly just be good instincts, it was progress. At least one thing she did well, and others she was starting to get. She’d actually finished and lit, all on her own, at least one generator in every trial she’d been in after her third. That was something—that was helping.

Still, it was dismal. Thank _god_ for Meg Thomas. The girl was wild. She’d been tripping all over herself around Jane the first day she’d been here, and staring at her boobs and ass every time Jane turned away, which she couldn’t possibly think Jane hadn’t noticed, but the next morning she’d popped up out of the blue and asked Jane if she liked singing and musicals at all, and when Jane had said yes because she was too surprised about being woken up by someone to be asked that question to say no, Meg had wanted to see if she would like to be a last minute addition to a movie she was retelling that day called _Pitch Perfect._ Jane had declined, since she’d never seen the film and everything in this place was still a little too much for her, but told her she was excited to see it—although that hadn’t been entirely true, because it was not only a movie Jane had not seen, she’d never even heard of it, and on top of that had no idea what to expect from ‘Meg Movies’ (although, she had been _greatly_ relieved to hear the girl was continuing them, because she sort of thought Feng had been serious about being willing to kill her to keep that franchise going if she had to). On top of that, it was hard to be excited about anything when you knew at any moment you might get pulled into a trial and brutally murdered by someone.

Meg had performed the film though, that same night, as an _almost_ one-man retelling, with a little help from a couple of the other girls for the musical numbers. It had been an out of body experience for Jane—something that had become a daily occurrence at this point—but utterly unexpectedly, the event had also been very fun. They’d been almost halfway through the movie before Jane got into it, because she was still thinking about being strangled earlier, but eventually watching Meg play romantic lead opposite herself by hurriedly ripping on and off a fake moustache and changing her voice had been enough distraction for Jane to get lost in. She’d actually laughed when Meg had, in a pretty decent Australian accent, emotionally delivered a line as the character named Fat Amy about appreciating the singing team for, despite having several thin members, still having “fat hearts,” and then again when she’d pantomimed the main character and her boyfriend kissing opposite herself at the end. The girl was pretty amazing. She really had a talent for it—one that could only come to someone with a strong sense of showmanship, passion for the material, and no shame.

This whole existence was surreal. The suffering, the time loss, the people. The fact that Jane could now say she had died. Not once, but multiple times. And going from all of that awful tribulation in a trial to suddenly sitting in a circle watching someone perform a movie, or to trying to catch a break by the campfire while drinking a cup of coffee, of all things, and hearing the two people beside you animatedly argue about if the version of the Joker from the animated show _The Batman_ or the one from was or was not the best cinematic adaptation of that character ever for an hour.

It helped though. That there were things here that were so…in spite of everything…regular.

Still, it was a lot to bear. Jane didn’t know how anyone did it. Jeff had said he was new here too, but he really seemed…okay. All of them seemed, at least most of the time, like they could bear this. Except Jane.

There was the sound of knuckles against a tree, but still lost in thought Jane Romero didn’t register it.

“Hey, sorry to bother you.” She looked up, and it was the policeman.

 _Oh lord,_ thought Jane in exhaustion, _Not another grown man come to give this a shot._

“It’s uh, crazy, I know,” said Detective Tapp, glancing at the tree he still had his knuckles against, and then relaxing the hand. “Just sort of tradition here, apparently. To let someone know you’re here, even when we don’t have any doors.”

Jane hadn’t really noticed him knock, so it took her a couple seconds to understand what on earth he was talking about.

“It okay if I sit down for a minute? I was hoping to talk to you about something,” said Tapp.

 _Oh great. I knew it._ “Uh, sure,” said Jane, trying to appear civil and gesturing to the ground opposite her.

“Don’t worry,” he said, catching the look on her face and moving to sit down, “I know you might find this hard to believe, because I’ve seen you getting it kind of rough the past few days, but I’m not here to try and pick you up.”

“Oh, thank god,” said Jane in relief.

“They’ve been kind of relentless, huh?” asked Tapp, settling.

“No,” said Jane, trying to be fair, “But I can’t take anything at all right now.”

“Try to forgive them if you can—they’re just excited you’re here,” said Tapp.

“I know,” said Jane, because she did. Really, it wasn’t _that_ bad. Ace was actually pretty charming, but she just didn’t have the goddamn strength for that right now. She was tired all the time, and no one wanted to get winked at when you were so exhaustedly taut that you might snap the neck of the first person who made eye contact with you. She shifted a little and smiled at Tapp, old conversational talk show skills automatically starting up. “But either way, I appreciate it. Not your type, or better things to do?”

“Nah,” said Tapp, smiling back a little chagrined, “Not that. Maybe better things to do, but not entirely that one either. You know those women who come on your show to talk about how their husbands wasted ten years of their life?  I’d be one of the husbands.”

“Ah,” said Jane, “Not a big fan of me, then.”

“No, you’re probably fair about that stuff,” sighed Tapp, “And the show was pretty good. I watched it off and on, back in the day. But I think it’s safe to say you wouldn’t really like me.”

 _Well, I appreciate the frankness,_ thought Jane, trying to figure him out. “So what _did_ you want then?”

“A favor,” said Tapp, “And it’s gonna sound weird.”

“Well, that’s an encouraging way to introduce a topic,” said Jane warily.

“Look,” said Tapp, “I know you haven’t been here long, and this isn’t fair to ask, but I’m going to do it anyway. Do you think you could offer therapy?”

“W—to you?” asked Jane, completely taken aback.

“No,” said Tapp, almost offended, “Me? No—to everyone else.”

“I’m not a therapist,” protested Jane, “I’m a talk show host. Detective, you have to realize that, right? I might have read up on a lot of things so I had topics well-covered, but that’s hardly the same as being licensed to practice—that’s like asking a sophomore psychology student to fill this kind of role.  There’s no way I’d be qualified to do this. I—”

“—I know,” cut in Tapp, holding up a hand in a ‘just hang on a second’ gesture, “But that’s not the point.”

“How is that not the point?” asked Jane.

He started to say something and then sighed and leaned forward and rubbed his temple. “Look,” said Tapp, glancing back up at her, “Let me try to explain. You’ve been here—what, five—four days? Let me ask you this: How has being here made you feel?”

 _Uh. Like shit,_ thought Jane, _Like I need therapy. Every day for the rest of my life. _“Pretty…Uhm. Pretty not good,” said Jane warily.

“Right,” agreed Tapp, “And a lot of these people, they’ve been here way longer. Years for some. But they’re all too goddamn stubborn or stupid or something to talk about this shit with each other and ask for help.”

“Okay, well, I understand that that can’t be healthy,” said Jane slowly, “But I’m still in no way a licensed psychologist.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Tapp, “The way I see it, what matters is that they talk about this shit to someone. You’re not a doctor; I know that, and you know that, but them? Everyone here just sees Jane Romero. What matters is that I think at least some of them actually _might_ talk to you. And they won’t do that shit with anyone. Definitely not me.”

Jane stared at him, thinking about this. _No. No way Jane. I know our whole life you’ve wanted to help people, but this is not the right way. You, and I cannot emphasize this enough, do not know how to be a psychiatrist. _“Tapp, I—I’m sorry,” she said out loud, “I just don’t think that’s a good idea. I can’t do that—not the right way.”

“How would you mess it up?” asked Tapp, “I’m not asking you to give them all life advice that’ll fix everything—I know you’re not a doctor, and I’m pretty sure that’s not how therapy works, because if it is, every doctor back in reality is doin’ something wrong—I just want you to get people to talk, and then listen to them. That’s what you do—and they’ll talk to you. They see you as someone it’s normal and okay to discuss traumatic shit with, even if you aren’t a therapist. Isn’t that what you did?”

“Well, yes,” said Jane defensively, “But so people could be heard, not because I thought I could treat them myself.”

“You gotta know it would be good for them,” pushed on Tapp, not ready to give up on this, “They got shit they need to talk about.”

 _I’m sure,_ thought Jane, _It’s been four days and I have shit I need to talk about, but I just can’t do it. There’s no way I could. I don’t know how. _

“And what about you, Detective?” asked Jane out loud, “Don’t you need that too?”

Tapp waved that off. “After the life I had before this? Not really. I’m used to shit.”

“Maybe the rest of us will get used to it too,” said Jane.

He looked tired, and unhappy, and still not ready to give up, but she could tell from his expression that he’d already figured out that no matter what he said, she was going to say no.

“I’m sorry, Detective,” said Jane, meaning it at least a little, “I just don’t think I’m qualified to do that. I’d probably make things worse. I can’t do it.”

Tapp nodded slowly, then stood up a little stiffly, pushing off his knees to make it to his full height.

“Well,” he said, “It was just a thought. Maybe you’ll change your mind.”

“I don’t think so,” said Jane, “But look—if you really think people need to communicate more, you should try talking to them yourself.”

“I’ve tried,” said Tapp, sighing, “But trust me, if you _might_ mess that up, I _definitely_ will. Have a good rest of your day, Miss Romero.”

He turned then, and left, business concluded, and Jane watched him go. Walk a little stiff. A tired man.

 _Damn it,_ thought Jane, watching him go, _I shouldn’t feel guilty. I made the right decision—there’s no way I’m qualified to do something like that._

She wondered though, what kind of a man he was. The detective had died for her her second trial here, and said nothing about it when they got back. He never seemed to talk much with anyone, except about plans, or occasionally with Meg. And this—this was the first real conversation he’d had with her, and it was to ask her to be a therapist for the group.

 _The kind of man people came onto my show to talk about, huh?_ thought Jane, eyes still on his retreating figure, _But what does that mean, exactly? There were a lot of husbands talked about on my show, so which kind were you?_

* * *

 

 

 

 _Okay,_ thought Quentin, _four days. Four days, seven trials. This makes eight. No Clown, no Nightmare. Yet._ That was lucky, but every time he got lucky, and the numbers stacked up, he felt more and more sure it was about to be the last time he got lucky.

No one could go forever without ending up in the trial they didn’t want. And he’d already made it four days. That was four more than he’d expected. But in a way, the respite was worse, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for the blow to connect. Waiting for him to come back.

With each new killer Quentin faced, he ran through a nightmare of potential scenarios in his head—things he could have overlooked, ways they might be able to make him sleep. He’d been careful, but he’d missed the Clown until it was too late. He couldn’t fuck up like that again.

It was exhausting, and harrowing, trying again and again to think of what someone might be able to do to him. Usually being in a trial was bad enough, but now he was terrified to let any of the things in the night get close to him—and not because he was afraid they would cut him up and kill him—he was afraid it would be worse. He was already slowed down by the injuries he’d sustained, and his fear of underestimating another killer was so strong that he knew it was slowing him down too. Quentin was choosing, over and over and over, to be careful instead of useful—leaving gens a little early when something might be coming—hiding longer, taking less risks, and that was terrible in its own way, because he knew he was getting people killed, and he couldn’t keep that up. He couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t keep hearing people scream and go up on a hook because he hadn’t had the guts to light a generator that was almost finished and take the hit for staying to do it—he couldn’t. But he knew that as soon as he stopped, that was going to be when something got him. There just wasn’t an end, not to any of it.

Outside of trials was a little better. Meg had finally done _Pitch Perfect,_ and she’d finished telling Laurie _The Empire Strikes Back,_ and Laurie had gone on about it for the next two days. David had come over a lot of times to try and see how he was doing, and help him get back on his feet—sometimes just to tell him stupid stories about things he’d done back home—bar fights, and college stunts, and once accidentally stealing a car. They’d kept up the practice of leaving someone to stay awake with him the past few days, too. Claudette especially had been doing it—taking multiple shifts—and it was nice to talk to her. About medicine, and dogs, and nothing. Kate and Jeff were trying between them to show him how to play guitar, and he could do a couple of basic chords—he could almost play Edelweiss. Even Feng had come over, and she wasn’t usually big on initializing any kind of socializing, but she’d brought stuff and they’d worked on more things for the Huntress. She’d made a cord for her necklace and started on a bracelet with a lot of charms, and he’d pained the mask he’d made with patterns like a Faberge egg with her help. Ace had tried to give him good pickup lines, Dwight had talked strategy, Meg had joked with him—everyone had tried to help. And it was good. It was good to be with them, even when they weren’t doing things to distract him. Just to have company. They were great, and they were helping, and Quentin appreciated them a lot. Everyone was trying so hard for him, and he knew it, and he was grateful, and it helped. But.

Quentin still dreaded it.

Being outside a trial was almost worse than being in one, because he had to wonder the whole time when the next one would come, and any time he wasn’t thinking about next time, he was remembering, and there wasn’t enough distraction in the world to make him forget that.

It was awful. Thinking. Thinking was awful now. Unbearable. _Forget,_ he told himself over and over, _Don’t think about it. That’s what he would want you to do._

But he did it anyway. It was just one more thing he didn’t have control over. Peace of mind was just another thing that had been taken away from him.

And it was exhausting.

It was so much. It was too much.

He kept finding himself remembering things, and feeling his back pressed against the ground with that thing over him, and thinking _I can’t do it again. I can’t go on like this. I can’t,_ and then hating himself for thinking it, because he would keep going on like this, fuck it; he didn’t have a choice, and he wasn’t about to give up. But the thoughts came back.

And Quentin was so tired.

He was so tired of being hurt, and being afraid, and of remembering being hurt and being afraid. He just wanted it to be over. He wanted a break. He wanted to go to sleep, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even close his eyes and just shut down—just take a break from everything, like everyone else could. There was never, ever a break for Quentin Smith. There was no down time, no rest, no recuperating.

It was bad, but he didn’t want people to know how bad, because they were all worried enough as it was, and it didn’t help. It didn’t help them to worry, and it didn’t help him to be worried about, and he was so tired of dragging people down with him.

But it was lonely.

Not really because he was choosing not to tell people about things that had happened, but because he was still living through them all the time in his head, and no one could understand that. Not the way he did. And if they could have, even in part, it would have been wrong to bother them. _I’ve done enough,_ he thought, _I’ve fucked up enough._

So, he’d spent the last four days like this. Trying to have a good time with his friends while his mind played for him again and again the memory of a tongue licking up the side of his neck, taking in his blood, and a hand on his leg; trying to guess how the thing in the trial with him might make the day his last; trying to live with the guilt of having been so afraid that he’d fucked something up again and let someone die.

Trying to exist.

But he was so tired. Quentin was so, so tired.

He had been tired in his seventh trial, and he was just as tired when his eighth began.

Quentin materialized on the edge of the area, by a corner, and a meat hook. The Red Forrest. It hadn’t surprised him that this was where he’d ended up, because he’d been here on his last two trials as well, and it seemed like sometimes they got stuck in ruts here.

As soon as he could move, Quentin ducked down and carefully stole towards the nearest row of fences, looking for a generator, but also looking for the killer. Muscles tense, waiting for the sound of singing, or a pink cloud, or something else he would have to try to guess about. If it happened, of course, that didn’t mean it was over—he was supposed to kill himself—but he was tense with the immediacy of that order. The knowledge of what happened if he failed. What if he tried to do it, and didn’t make it all the way? What if something got to him while he was still dying, and he couldn’t even run, or move, or fight back? The fucking thought of being helpless was petrifying.

There was no singing, though, no heartbeat, no traps, no jigsaw boxes—not in sight, anyway, and no pink clouds of drugs wafting through the air.

 _I can’t know, then,_ thought Quentin, slipping through a windowsill and spotting a generator a little off to his right, by a pile of logs, and carefully making his way over. He would have to be watchful. He’d been healing, at least. His stomach still hurt basically any time he moved, and his leg was rough to walk on—his right hand was kind of fucked, and fixing generators hurt because of it, but he could do it. He could push through and run if he had to—badly—and he could crouch, and hide, and twist wires together and light a gen. He was already better than he’d been. That, at least, was a kind of consolation.

He started to work, going as fast as he could, senses on critically high alert, looking for any sign of danger. The fog was pretty thick, though, and with all the trees, visibility was limited.

 _No fear aura yet,_ thought Quentin nervously, _It probably means that the killer’s just on the other side of the forest, but I hope it’s not the Pig._ That was an old thought, though. The Pig wouldn’t be as bad as other things, right? His mind played furious catchup then, trying to guess what she could possibly do to him that he couldn’t anticipate, just in case it _was_ her, and—

A hatchet embedded itself in the machinery an inch from his nose, and Quentin flung himself back from the generator in shock as the thing sparked and backfired under his hands.

_Wait. Fuck—a—a hatchet? That has to mean—_

He saw her then, coming fast through the brush, and he backpedaled, dragging himself to his feet, feeling too many things to be sure which one to listen to, but primarily relief, and then he saw her arm go back up with another hatchet.

_She—fuck—fuck—she doesn’t recognize me? She doesn’t care?—shit, I—_

Quentin ducked as the hatchet came, but he didn’t make it quite low enough, and the thing scraped his shoulder, leaving a thin cut and tearing his jacket open. She was close enough he could hear her humming now, and common sense and practice and instinct and fear took over and Quentin turned and ran.

This wasn’t what he’d been expecting at all, and he was trying, as he ran, to think through too many things at once. He was feeling relief that it was her, and not someone else, and confusion over the fact she had just tried twice to kill him, and wondering if he should leave the mask he had in his pocket behind, like he and Feng had planned, and if so if he should just drop it on the ground, and wondering if he did that if she would stop to look or just miss it in the grass, and trying to understand what he was supposed to do about all of this and about her and if what he’d been supposed to do had changed since she was trying to kill him, and now there was this new part of his brain too, wondering if somehow the Nightmare had gotten to her as well, and what she might do to get to him.

Another hatchet shot past, and Quentin barely made it around a corner as it sailed right through where he’d been. She was close, scarily close now, and he saw a sill in the log walls to his left and leapt it, and his fucked up leg hit it wrong as he went over and he stumbled on the other side, knocking into the far wall and falling to his knees for a second, and then she was rounding the corner on top of him.

He made it to his feet, feeling nothing now but fear as she closed in, only ten feet away with an ax raised and his back hit the wall.

“Wait, wait!” said Quentin, putting up his hands, mind frantically trying to remember the Russian Feng had taught him after their first trial, but he didn’t know how to say ‘wait,’ so he frantically settled for what he did know. “Привет!”

She faltered for a second at the greeting, ax still pulled back and ready, surprised.

 _Please,_ thought Quentin desperately, trying to find some way out of this, _Not you too. Please, I don’t want to die like this._

She took another step forward then, and another, ax still up, and he saw her eyes narrow under the mask as she looked at him.

 _It’s the cuts,_ he realized with a sinking heart as she tilted her head, hostility still in the lines of her movement, _She doesn’t recognize me anymore. That’s not fair. Why can’t even one thing turn out okay?_

It hit him then, that maybe it had. Maybe it was a good thing for them all that this was how things had ended up. If she didn’t recognize him, then he was out. Things would go back to normal. The person she remembered would never be seen again, and only Feng would have to run from her.

But he was scared. To die here. And not because he was afraid of dying; it was more complicated than that. Quentin had worked hard on the mask, and he had wanted to give it to her—had sort of hoped that it might matter to her. He hadn’t wanted her to think he was dead forever, and gone. And most of all, he didn’t want to die again now, like this, at her hands beneath the ax after having asked her to let him go, because if he did, he wasn’t going to be able to remember the way she’d held him last time when he died right anymore, and it would just taste like this forever. Like everything else, and every other death, and it had been one of the only memories he had from this place that was good. That was comforting.

She moved closer, hesitation fading and body shifting to leverage the ax and strike him down, and he pressed his back further into the wood as she advanced, even though it hurt the old cuts there.

And Quentin caved, because no matter how much smarter it was to die and be forgotten, it was too much with everything else, and he couldn’t give up on this. Even though he didn’t think he had a chance of making it, Quentin tried. Not ready to die to the ax and lose the memory of last time.

“Матушка, Матушка please!” said Quentin desperately, trying to find her eyes beneath the mask as she raised her ax. “Don’t!”

She swung, and Quentin dropped to the ground with his back against the wall and brought his arms up over his head, trying to shield himself, but the ax didn’t connect.

He looked up past his arms, and saw her looking down at him, ax still halfway through a swing, head tilted, looking surprised and a little suspicious. Slowly, she lowered the ax in one hand and reached down with the other, pushing his arms out of the way so she could see his face.

Quentin let her, afraid to hope and afraid to stop her, and she took a knee to be on his level and took his chin in her hand like she had the last time he’d been in a trial with her, tilting his head and looking him over carefully.

 “It’s still me,” said Quentin hopelessly, watching her eyes trace the lines on his face, “I’m just ugly now.” _Please remember me. Please recognize me._

The Huntress clipped her ax back on her belt and reached out with her other hand, brushing some of his hair up off his forehead while she tilted his chin, then she looked down at the cuts she could see on his neck, and the bandaged right hand. Still with a hand cupping his chin, she reached down and took the bandaged hand in her other palm and looked at it, then back at him. Quentin kept his eyes on her face, hoping, waiting to see.

She ran a finger along one of the deeper cuts across his nose, and Quentin winced at the touch, and she cocked her head and looked a little concerned, then held up her right hand and tucked the thumb in, bending the other four fingers like a claw, and she made a raking motion with the hand in the air, studying it thoughtfully.

“Yeah,” said Quentin, and she looked back at him when he spoke. “That’s what happened.” Quentin nodded at the hand, and then looked back up at her.

She blinked, thinking about that, and then took her hands and placed one on each side of his face and stared hard at him for a moment.

“Младенец моя?” said the Huntress like it was a question.

He had never heard her speak before, and Quentin didn’t know what that meant, so he just stared at her, no idea what to say, or do.

She grabbed him. Quentin hadn’t been expecting that, so he let out a muffled sound of alarm as she dragged him against her chest and wrapped her arms around him.

“Младенец моя,” she said again, mournfully, and he felt her hand running through his hair, petting it, “Младенец моя.”

 _What does that mean?_ thought Quentin nervously, trying to breathe through the fabric of her shirt. Then just as fast he was being dragged back out and held at arm’s length, and the Huntress was beaming at him.

“Младенец моя!” She said excitedly.

“Uh,” said Quentin, smiling back reflexively, “I—”

Before he could finish, she hooked her hands under his arms and stood up, lifting him into the air above her head like a puppy effortlessly and spinning in circles with him. “Младенец моя! Младенец моя!” she shouted happily, setting him down ruffling his hair aggressively, then kissing him all over his forehead while she laughed.

It hurt, but not a lot, and he had absolutely no idea how he should respond to whatever this was, but overwhelmed by relief and the rampant surge of unexpected affection, Quentin acted on impulse, grinning back and then laughing himself as she picked him up again just to look at him, beaming and shouting the same words on repeat. He was really, really glad that she wasn’t trying to kill him.

“Дома!” shouted the Huntress excitedly, setting him back down and wrapping her arms around him and holding tight.

 _You remembered me,_ thought Quentin, overcome with relief pressed against her shoulder. “It’s good to see you too. I thought for a second there you were going to kill me,” he said out loud, knowing she wouldn’t understand, but wanting to say it anyway.

She released the hug and smiled at him, then looked over her shoulder, back towards her house.

 _Oh boy,_ thought Quentin, having forgotten about the second half of what would happen if she remembered him.

The Huntress turned back to him, still beaming, and scooped him up with both arms, holding him with his side held against her chest like a baby.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” said Quentin, looking up at her awkwardly as she started to walk towards the house, humming, carrying him with absolutely no difficulty like he weighed nothing at all, “I would have just followed you.”

She looked back at him and pressed her nose against his like a cat and nuzzled, smiling, then faced the house again, never once breaking her purposeful stride.

 _Well,_ thought Quentin, overwhelmed by everything that was happening to him, _I guess you got what you wanted. Nice going,_ and then, with considerably more concern, _Wait. She got doors?_

Adam had mentioned that Philip saw her making doors, but Quentin had been here in the Red Forest twice since then—he’d been here earlier today even—and nothing had changed at all about the house in either trial, and when they’d talked it over at the campfire after all that, everyone had agreed that whatever real alterations someone made to their home area, it wouldn’t affect a trial.

They’d, uh. They’d been wrong.

Two generators flickered to life as she walked, and the Huntress paused to cast them hungry looks, but she refocused on the house almost immediately, close to it now.

 _Uh, enjoy the easy trial I guess, guys,_ thought Quentin with very mixed feelings, watching the building come up fast, _It looks like I’m going to keep her distracted._

They got close to the house, and to his surprise, Quentin saw Feng on the second story of the building, working the generator there. The second she heard the Huntress coming, Feng let go of the gen and went face-first into the tall grass up there, vanishing completely, save for the rustle of weeds as she slowly crawled away from the generator.

 _Shoot, I didn’t know she was here,_ thought Quentin. He’d only known that Jane was, because he’d been talking with her about suturing techniques when they’d both vanished. Feng hadn’t even been at camp. She’d actually been disappearing a lot lately—and like, a lot for Feng was a _lot_ a lot. Because she and Nea were gone a bunch anyway.

The Huntress reached the door and bent to open it, still holding him—which was a little awkward to do, and as she did, Quentin looked up and saw Feng peeking down at him over the edge of the second story, and they locked eyes, her with the biggest ‘ _Oh my GOD’_ look on her face. Quentin glanced over at the Huntress to make sure she was looking at the door and gave Feng a hopeless ‘ _I don’t know’_ gesture with a hand.

 _“QUENTIN,”_ she mouthed, “ _What the FUCK are you doing?”_

He didn’t have time to answer, because the Huntress got the door and carried him inside, still humming.

 _How is she so stealthy?_ thought Quentin, wishing that were him, _I’ve been trying my hardest the last four days to not even look in the same direction as a killer, and I’m terrible at it. I mean I’m not bad and running and evading, but whatever the heck she’s doing, just ghosting around? HOW? I wish she would teach me._

Maybe he would ask her. It would only be fair, because she kept dragging him off to try and teach her how to aura-read the escape, which was impossible because Quentin himself had no idea how he did it.

The inside of the big log house looked much like it always did. A large table in the front room by the fireplace beneath a chandelier made out of antlers, the large family portrait on the wall, candles strewn about, lighting everything, a big stack of firewood, the little alcove with the iron ring and the ropes, stairs leading up to the second story.

The Huntress set him down then, and closed the door behind her, and Quentin looked nervously at the alcove about two feet to his right. _Damn it, my throat’s all torn up. This is probably really going to hurt._

Excitedly, and not noticing what he was looking at at all, the Huntress took his hand and pulled him after her, towards the kitchen.

 _Okay, this is—why would she do this,_ thought Quentin worriedly, looking at the new doors made of chunks of wood tacked together which blocked the usual entrance. He remembered the table in there, with its chunks of raw meat and the big cleaver knife embedded in the wood that apparently he and Jake and Ace and Laurie and David had all spent a chunk of three separate trials trying to tear free. Unfortunately for them, like the hatchets in lockers, the thing wouldn’t budge for any of them. It was like not being King Arthur and trying to get Excalibur out of a stone.

“Матушка?” he asked nervously, looking up at her as she slid back a bolt on the outside of the door.

She smiled at him and ruffled his hair again, hand still around his, then pushed open the door and pushed him in in front of her.

Quentin blinked at the space in front of him, completely taken aback. It was like an entirely different room.

The far doorway that had been open was boarded up, and the little table was gone. The two windows were half-boarded, so a person could no longer fit through them, but they still gave light, but none of that was what was really remarkable.

It had been decorated. The floor was cleaner, and there was a colorful blue rug over it, the ropes and meat hooks on the pulley in the ceiling that used to have raw animal chunks hanging from it now had some little colorful baubles and children’s toys, hung up there from the hooks like someone might hang coffee mugs beside a couple of long ropes which hung all the way down to pool on the floor, and pushed against the little room’s side walls there were two uneven frames made of wood, solid but slanted, and on top of those were beds. Two small person-sized beds with faded quilts covered in friendly geometric patterns. One bed with a wooden duck on top of its quilt, and the other with the toy Quentin remembered he’d been given last time resting in the center of it.

 _A bedroom,_ thought Quentin, staring in shock and almost awe, _She. She made a child’s bedroom._

The Huntress was standing behind him, looking down over his shoulder at him, grinning, and he turned and looked back up at her.

“Wow,” he said, because he knew he was supposed to say something and didn’t know what to say, “You made this?”

She hummed happily and patted him on the head, then pushed him over towards the bed with the ball and cup toy on it.

“For me?” asked Quentin, stopping beside the tilted bedframe, taking in the mattress of cloth stuffed with grass and the decorative quilt laid over it.

The Huntress smiled at him and picked him up, then dropped him onto the bed.

 _Ow,_ thought Quentin, sitting up and taking the wooden toy out from underneath his back. She was beaming at him though. And that was nice. _What was the word?_ “Спасибо,” said Quentin proud of himself for remembering, and glad Feng had known ‘ _thank you’._

Her face lit up at the word, excited and surprised.

A third generator flickered to life outside then, somewhere past Quentin’s window, and the Huntress looked out into  the woods past him at it, hostility and focus back for just a moment, and then she looked at him and smiled again, then walked over to the center of the room with its repurposed ropes and meat hooks and picked up an end of one of the long, hanging ropes and came back.

“Oh, I was really hoping we were going to avoid that this time,” said Quentin, watching her come, swallowing hard, eyes on the rope, “I don’t guess I can talk you out of this because my neck’s all cut up, can I?”

The Huntress didn’t seem to have any idea what he was saying, and just came over, all humming and smiles, and looped the rope around his throat. Quentin could have run, or tried to fight her off, but at this stage it seemed kind of pointless.

 _I’m sure I can get it off,_ he thought, _Those meat hooks look sharp, and I’m not already dying this time._

She looped the rope around his neck and Quentin winced as the rope pressed against the deep cut in the side of his neck that Freddy had carved near the end of it, and the Huntress paused and tilted her head, looking at him with concern, and she slowly ran a finger down the length of the cut while Quentin tried not to make any noise, because that one still hurt a lot, and he didn’t like feeling it touched by anything.

Seeing him grimace, the Huntress paused again and patted his head sympathetically. “Младенец. Я убью.”

She kissed the cut, and tied the rope loosely around his neck so it hung—not so lose he could slip it over his head, but more like a necklace than a choker, and she smiled and stood up. “Скоро домой.”

Then she spun on a dime and tore out of the room, closing the door behind her. Quentin heard the deadbolt slide into place.

 _She’s really not taking any chances. I hope the others are safe. At least there’s only two gens to go,_ he thought, staring at the door and still feeling the phantom sensation of her kissing the cut. That was something people did—in tv, and books. He knew that. Moms did that. But no one had ever done that to him before, at least not that he was old enough to remember. _It’s supposed to make it hurt less,_ he thought in a kind of disconnectedly abstract way.

“Quentin!”

The voice was hushed, but definitely loud enough he couldn’t possibly miss it. Quentin turned and looked out the window beside his bed and saw Feng with her fingers over the piece of wood that had been tacked across hand the window, peering in.

Quentin shifted on the bed and moved closer on his knees, up to the other side of the window.

“What are you doing!” hissed Feng, “Get out of there!”

“I’m working on it,” replied Quentin in a hushed voice, noticing in only momentary confusion that Feng was wearing Nea’s flannel instead of her own shirt, “She only just left like six seconds ago.”

“How did she get you so fast?” asked Feng, moving her head to try and see past him into the room. He shifted to accommodate. “What is all this?” she asked, taking in the bed and the toys hanging from the meat hooks and ropes like the world’s strangest mobile, “She made you a room?”

“I think she made _us_ a room,” replied Quentin, gesturing to the second bed and the toy duck on it.

Feng made a face Quentin had no idea how to categorize. “Well damn it,” she said, “That’s just great! Look, I gotta get out of here and go hide again, but so do you! How are you getting out once you get the rope off?”

“I could try and kick out one of these,” said Quentin, tapping the board Feng was peeking over.

She tugged on it violently and it didn’t give at all.

“You’re fucked,” whispered Feng, “Do you need me to sneak in and unbolt the door?”

“Can you?” asked Quentin.

“Yeah,” said Feng like _duh,_ “I’m always careful. _God_ Quentin, how did you do this to yourself?”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” protested Quentin, “I can’t run that well right now.”

“Then hide!” snapped Feng quietly.

“I didn’t even know it was her until she’d already seen me and thrown a hatchet,” said Quentin, trying to defend himself.

“You didn’t look like you were fighting her very hard,” accused Feng.

“Well, she was right on top of me,” said Quentin, “Was I supposed to punch her? Would you?”

“No, but I wouldn’t just—”

“—Feng,” choked out Quentin, eyes going wide as he saw the Huntress’s frame shift into view behind her suddenly, but it was way too late to effectively warn her.

 _Fuck, we have to stop talking in trials!_ thought Quentin, _God damn it!_

Feng spun around and took in the towering woman leaning over with a broad ax, the set line of her mouth and unreadable expression beneath the mask, and, in true Feng fashion, confronted her problems by selecting the surest path between herself and survival.

“Матушка!” said Feng in the voice of someone overjoyed, throwing her arms around the Huntress’s waist and burying her face in her stomach.

Whatever hostility or unsureness had been on the Huntress’s face as she approached Feng instantly vanished and she lit up, clipping the ax to her belt and picking Feng up.

 _So much for whatever you ‘wouldn’t just’ do,_ thought Quentin feeling kind of pleased as he watched the Huntress stop spinning Feng to hold her out at arm’s length and say something that sounded very cross in Russian. She looked like she was reprimanding a cat for bad behavior. Quentin didn’t know Russian, but he knew enough about parent tone of voice to be pretty sure she was telling her to not disappoint her as a person again like last time.

“Опасный,” said the Huntress, shaking her head, “Останься, плохая Малышка..”

“Oh, absolutely,” said Feng, definitely no idea what she was saying either, somehow making her eyes incredibly big and putting on the most angelic expression Quentin had ever seen on her face. He tried really hard not to laugh.

The Huntress gave her a frown for a few more seconds, looking stern, then nodded back and smiled, moving to hold Feng against her shoulder with one arm like a baby, and walking back into the house.

“Hey sis,” said Quentin as the Huntress opened the door and dropped Feng inside, “Welcome home.”

“Oh, fuck you, Quentin,” said Feng in a tone of voice that would give the Huntress no idea what she was saying. She didn’t really look like she meant it, though. “Now you’ve gone and got us both in trouble.”

“I’m not the one who was being really loud at the window,” Quentin protested, smiling and feeling just a little smug because for once it was true and it wasn’t really his fault she’d gotten spotted.

Feng made a face but didn’t respond, because she knew he was right. “I wouldn’t have been at the window if you didn’t get captured,” said Feng after a second, shooting him a look as behind her, the Huntress closed the door.

“I didn’t ask you to come talk to me,” defended Quentin lightly.

“’I didn’t ask you to come talk to me’,” Feng mocked, ribbing right back without any real malice, “Fine! Next time I’ll leave you to rot like I should’ve.”

The Huntress picked her up and dropped her on the other bed, although Feng was fortunate enough not to land on the wooden duck like he had the toy on top of his, and then the Huntress went and took the second rope hanging from the ceiling and walked over to her.

“Oh great,” said Feng, making eye contact with him past the Huntress while speaking in a tone of voice like she was excitedly opening a Christmas present, “This again!”

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” said Quentin, grinning, “Look at you. You got a toy duck, a bed. This is a big step up from the alcove with the human bones and stuff.”

“Thanks,” said Feng, smiling up at the Huntress as she tied off the rope around her neck and patted her head, “I hate it.”

The Huntress smiled back at her, and out in the forest, another generator lit up. One to go. At the sound, the Huntress turned towards the light and the look on her face got intent and unfriendly. “Скоро дома,” said the Huntress, turning back to them and smiling quickly, then hurrying out the door, deadbolting it behind her.

“On the plus side,” said Quentin, watching the door she’d left, “We really nailed this trial for the other two.”

She shot him a look like _Don’t try to make this sound good._ “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

 _Am I?_ thought Quentin, feeling guilty and confused by the accusation. “It’s uh, Jane and…?” he asked, trying to recover.

“David,” said Feng.

“Oof,” said Quentin, shooting her a concerned look, “That’s rough.”

“Yeah,” she agreed a lot more casually, pulling her legs up onto the bed with her and sitting cross-legged, “He’s not cute at all. I mean, like, not that he’s not kind of a fine-looking guy—”

“—Right,” agreed Quentin.

“But not cute,” said Feng, “She’s gonna kill his a ss if she finds him.”

That was such a strange thing to be thinking about when she’d just left Feng and him together in a room she’d made for them, but it was true. She’d been going to kill him too, before she recognized him. Quentin tried to come to terms with that.

“Jane’s fucked too,” said Feng, laying down on her back and kicking her legs up and down off the edge of the bed now, “Mom competition.”

“They’ll be okay, right?” said Quentin, a little worried now, “I know it’s just the two of them, but only one gen left.”

“Depends on if someone gets caught in the next two minutes,” said Feng, holding the duck up over her chest and turning it in her hands. “Oh! Hey—do you have any of your stuff for her on you? I’ve got…” she looked down at the shirt she was wearing, “Shit!”

“You took off the necklace?” asked Quentin, feeling bad for her and a little surprised, since they’d both been pretty diligent about keeping the things on them. You lost things you brought into a trial if you died, but not your clothes, so they’d experimented and found out they could loophole their way out of the danger of losing their hard-earned gifts for the Huntress by wearing them themselves. It had been an easy out for Feng, who had just worn her necklace, but Quentin couldn’t exactly wear a rabbit mask every trial. It had taken a little thought, but in the end he’d used a safety pin and run it through the lace in the back of the mask, and clipped that to the inside of one of his pockets like a brooch, which apparently had been good enough by trial logic to work.

“No,” said Feng angrily, “Just the charm bracelet. I’ve got the necklace still.” She pulled the chain out in front of the flannel for him to see. “I had the bracelet in my damn pocket though—fuck!”

“Sorry,” said Quentin, “And yeah—I got the mask.”

“Well,” sighed Feng, leaning back, “It could have been worse. At least I got a shirt this time.”

“Does this happen to you a lot?” asked Quentin, kind of mystified and concerned.

“I mean,” said Feng, glancing over, “Kinda. I think maybe about a third of the time we make out, one of us disappears. Fuck’n sucks. Last trial I had with the Pig I was running around in just my bra, and I swear to god, easiest Pig trial I’ve ever had.” She finger gun’d him. “Got ‘em. Big distraction success.”

“That’s kind of worrying,” said Quentin, staring past her, imagining that, “I don’t think I’d want the Pig to be distracted by me. You two really have to be more careful. What if you—” He’d been going to say _‘ended up in a trial with the Nightmare like that?’_ but he couldn’t, and suddenly he didn’t want to. “—It could be bad,” he said instead, trying not to actually follow the worrying line of thought that had been there for a second. Trying to shut it down and bury it.

Feng glanced over, still grinning and in a jokey mood, but she saw the expression on his face and her own expression shifted a little.

“Hey, are you two okay?” came Jane Romero’s soft voice from over by Feng’s window.

“We really need to stop whispering in trials,” said Quentin to Feng, hopping off his bed and climbing on top of hers with her to try and see out the window. Jane was a few inches from the sill, carefully watching her back.

 _At least she’s being way quieter than we were,_ he thought.

“Yeah, we’re fine,” said Feng, “You gotta get out of here and get that last gen though. If she catches one of you, only the other one will be able to help. We’re stuck in here right now.”

“You’re stuck?” whispered Jane in a tone that clearly said _‘Please whisper back more quietly,’_ “Doesn’t that mean you need to be rescued?”

“No,” said Quentin, “I’m pretty sure we can break out after a little while. It’s okay if you and David have to leave without us. She’s not going to hurt us—it just might take a little while for us to sneak off.”

“She’s not going to hurt you?” asked Jane, staring at him in absolutely astounded confusion. “The—the Huntress? The killer woman, with the hatchets? She’s not going to hurt you? But you’re—you’re tied up around the neck in there.”

“Yeah, and she locked the door,” agreed Feng, apparently as unphased by this as he weirdly was, “She just doesn’t want us to run off though.”

“That’s not good, though,” said Jane, looking from one to the other like she was really hoping someone was going to start talking sense, “You don’t want to stay?”

“No, but like, we won’t,” said Feng, “Just gonna take a little bit.”

“It’s complicated,” whispered Quentin, “But she kind of wants to adopt us.”

“How does that make you two feel okay about this?” asked Jane, still looking like she was trying to talk an insane person out of marrying a cardboard cutout of James Bond.

“She won’t hurt us because she likes us,” whispered back Feng like it should be totally obvious, “So we just wait until she’s distracted, and we sneak out, and bam. Trial where we don’t get cut up at all. Plus, we distracted her pretty well for you guys. Four gens worth.”

 _That was what I said,_ thought Quentin, glancing over at her, _And you were giving me a hard time about it._

“O…okay,” said Jane uncertainly, “And you’re…totally positive you can make it out?”

“I mean, it would help if you left open both exit doors,” said Feng.

“Are you and David going to be okay alone?” whispered Quentin, “We could probably cause a distraction.”

“Yeah,” agreed Feng, “We could start screaming or something and she’d come check on us I bet. I could pretend to faint.”

Jane looked like she was having a dissociative episode. She looked like that a lot.

“Maybe if one of us gets hooked, you do that,” said Jane, giving the both of them fairly concerned and uncertain looks. “I’ll, uh. I’ll go help David, then. You’re sure you’ll be okay? You really want us to just leave you in here?”

Feng glanced over at Quentin, and then the room around them, considering.

“Yeah, I think that’s the best option,” she said after a second, “If we run off again before the trial’s over, she might get pissed at us, and she might hate you and David forever for letting us go. We’ll just wait till she falls asleep or something. Just tell people not to worry, but it’ll be a long trial for us probably.”

“You’ll…really be fine?” asked Jane.

“Yup,” said Feng, finishing whatever strategizing she’d been doing in her head, “Worst comes to worst and we can always just kill ourselves I guess, but I’m pretty sure we can sneak out.”

“Sorry we can’t…actually help much,” said Quentin, feeling bad about that and that apparently no one had explained any of the Huntress stuff to Jane.

“Alright,” said Jane slowly, backing away from the window with great care, “You two…be smart.”

Feng nodded, and Jane left.

“God, what a mom,” said Feng, plopping back onto her back.

“What, Jane?” asked Quentin, “Just because she thinks we’re crazy for chilling in a killer’s house? I mean, she is kind of right. Right?”

“I mean would you rather be dead?” asked Feng.

“That’s not what you were saying back when you weren’t in here too,” said Quentin, grinning at her.

“Sounds fake,” said Feng, “I just remember saying you shouldn’t get grabbed so easily. And oh my _god_ this bed is nice. Did you even notice that?”

“Did—what?” said Quentin, looking down at Feng’s slightly uneven grass mattress.

“Dude, go flop down on yours,” said Feng, pointing at his bed, “It’s so fucking soft. I mean, maybe I just forgot what beds are like, but it’s so gooood.”

He hopped off of her bed and she started to move her arms and legs like she was making snow angels.

“Sooooft,” said Feng again happily, “I love it.” She sat up and looked at him. “Do you think we could smuggle out a bed?”

“Uh,” said Quentin, “Probably not?”

He hopped back on his own bed and felt it with his hand. It _was_ soft. Or at least, he thought it was. It was now—considering what he was used to resting on. Quentin hadn’t been on a bed in…

 _Oh. Wait,_ he thought suddenly, remembering waking up on one in a dream four days ago, and feeling sick. It hadn’t been that long. He didn’t remember if the bed in the dream had been soft, because he hadn’t cared—he’d just wanted to get off of it as quickly as possible.

 _This is different though,_ Quentin tried to tell himself, _She’s just trying to be nice._ Slowly, he hooked his legs up on top of the bed and lay down flat on it like Feng was, sort of sinking into the softness of the cloth stuffed with grass. She’d been right, it was soft.

 _Soft,_ thought Quentin, who had almost forgotten what that word felt like, _This is nice. I can’t do this for long though or I might actually fall asleep._ That wasn’t really true—he was never going to fall asleep again, no matter how much he wanted to, but being this comfortable was going to make it harder. It felt really, really good though. Finally, a position he could be in where nothing really hurt. Well, much. Didn’t hurt compared to how much moving hurt. It was soft enough that laying on his back didn’t even hurt the old cuts there, or the new wound in the back of his head. Quentin had forgotten that was something soft surfaces were capable of doing.

“Nice, right?” said Feng, grinning over at him.

“It’s pretty good,” said Quentin, smiling back.

“Meg owes me a backrub now too,” said Feng, looking smug, “We bet 15 minute massages over if the Huntress would take me back after being a bad rebel child and running away.”

“I can’t believe you got anyone to bet against you on that,” said Quentin, “I wouldn’t have.”

“I think it was the odds that got her,” said Feng thoughtfully, “If she lost, the price was small. If she won, she’d have been set for a week.”

“Man, I didn’t think to hustle anything over this whole Huntress fiasco,” said Quentin. Feng really never missed a trick, or an opportunity.

Somewhere back behind the Huntress’s house, towards where Quentin thought the shack was, they heard a faint scream of pain, and the sort of lighthearted fun that had settled over them instantly evaporated.

“Shit,” said Quentin worriedly, “That was David.”

“It’s okay,” said Feng quickly, standing up on her bed, “I got this.”

She let out the most ear-shattering scream Quentin had ever heard, and held it for a good fifteen seconds. He actually had to cover his ears after a second, because it was physically painful to listen to. She didn’t stop until they heard footsteps pounding on the ground outside.

“Quentin,” hissed Feng, “Pretend to be concerned.”

Then she flopped over dramatically onto the bed and slid off it to the ground, like her body had lost all its bones suddenly, and she lay there with her eyes shut.

 _Yeah, shit, I guess I’d better,_ thought Quentin, hopping off his bed and kneeling beside her, trying to look worried instead of laugh at the theatrically unconscious look Feng had on her face.

The door flew open, and the Huntress was standing in the doorway, ax ready. She saw Feng and looked startled.

 _It actually worked,_ thought Quentin, not sure how to feel about that, _She ditched David to come check on us._

“I, uh, I don’t know,” said Quentin, trying really, really hard to seem genuinely worried about Feng, “She just passed out.”

The Huntress hurried beside him and picked Feng up, cradling her in her lap and shaking her gently, trying to rouse her. Feng stayed perfectly still, letting her head lull lifelessly to the side as she was moved. Almost frantic now, the Huntress leaned her head against Feng’s chest, trying to get a heartbeat. Quentin was close enough to her face to see her eyes well past the mask, and she looked relieved, and then worried again as she heard Feng’s heart. She looked over at him then.

 _Oh, shit,_ thought Quentin, _She wants to know what happened. Uh._ “She hit her head,” said Quentin, not having any idea how to account for the fifteen second scream. He knew the Huntress would have no idea what he was saying, though, even though he was still bothering to say it out of politeness or habit or something equally stupid, so he bumped the side of his head with the base of his palm and then pointed to Feng.

The Huntress nodded, seeming to get it. She patted Feng’s cheek, trying to wake her again. Off by the shack, the last generator lit up, and the Huntress looked towards it hungrily as she heard the exit doors power.

 _This is it,_ thought Quentin, _Them or us. What’re you gonna do?_

The Huntress stared off towards one of the exits Quentin could see the aura of back along a wall, then the other, then looked back at Feng and stroked the side of her face. “Малышка?” said the Huntress softly.

Quentin watched her, kind of stunned, as somewhere out in the forest he faintly heard one of the exits opening. _You didn’t even really have to think about it. You actually want to make sure she’s okay more than you want to go kill them. I thought I was going to have to grab your arm and try to beg you to stay to buy time. Why do you like us so much so fast? You barely had us for an hour last time. But you made a room and beds and you decorated it kind of nice and you came back when she screamed and you stayed, and you held me when I was dying. What kind of a person are you?_

It was hard to know how to feel about her. She had killed him. Quentin could remember that if he tried, very viscerally. Both times she had decided to keep him, she’d been about to kill him too. So why was it so easy to forget that?

Feng dramatically let her eyelids flutter open and coughed weakly, slowly turning her head to look at the Huntress as if she was having a hard time focusing.

 _Oh please,_ thought Quentin, rolling his eyes at her and grinning because the Huntress couldn’t see him behind her.

“Матушка?” asked Feng weakly.

The Huntress’s face lit up with happiness and relief and she stroked Feng’s head, then gently lifted her up and set her on the bed.

“I’m so glad you’re feeling better,” said Quentin in a very sincere voice, “That was Oscar-worthy.”

“Thanks, I know,” said Feng weakly, smiling over at him like she barely had the strength. She looked up at the Huntress and smiled, taking her hand, but still talking to him. “It’s a good thing she doesn’t know what we’re saying though, because that was a terrible excuse.”

“I mean, I think I did okay,” defended Quentin, “What was I supposed to say, you had a stroke?”

“You didn’t even explain how I hit my head,” said Feng, still looking up at the Huntress, “You could have said I was jumping on the bed and fell off and hit the ground and passed out or something.”

“You’re not five years old,” he protested.

“And you think that would stop me from jumping on a bed?” asked Feng, glancing over at him, still talking in a dramatically weak voice.

 _I mean, I guess I kind of did,_ thought Quentin, not sure how to refute her argument, _Besides, your bed looks too nice and made up to have been jumped on._

He didn’t say that though. “Well, it doesn’t matter, does it?” he asked, “We did it.”

“That’s true,” said Feng, looking back at the Huntress who was sitting on the side of her bed, patting her head and still looking a little concerned. “I’m okay now,” said Feng to the big woman over her, sounding much stronger this time, “Спасибо Матушка.”

She sat up, and the Huntress looked surprised, then reached out and felt her forehead.

“It’s a miracle. I feel completely fine,” said Feng, shooting Quentin a look out of the corner of her eye which made it really hard not to laugh.

“Hey, be nice,” said Quentin, “She was really worried.”

Feng nodded and leaned forward, wrapping her arms around the Huntress’s waist. The large woman looked surprised and then happy, and hugged her back with one arm, patting her head with the other.

She gently moved Feng and set her back down then, although this time Feng immediately sat back up, back propped against the wall, and watched as the Huntress came over to him.

“Oh, I’m good,” said Quentin as she walked over, not really sure what he was supposed to do, “She’s the one who screamed.”

The Huntress knelt down in front of the bed, which, considering how short the bed was and how tall she was, about put them on equal ground.

 _This is so weird,_ thought Quentin, looking into dark eyes behind a white mask flecked with blood, _I’m not scared at all and I probably should be._

She reached out and took his hand—the right hand, the bandaged one—and looked at it thoughtfully, then reached up for the knotted end of the bandage by his wrist and untied it.

“Uh,” said Quentin nervously, looking down and watching her unwrap the hand. He looked over at Feng for support.

“What’s she doing?” asked Feng, sitting up on her knees to give her a little additional height, “I can’t see over her back.”

“Taking off my bandage,” said Quentin, looking back down at the hand as the Huntress carefully unwound the cloth from his fingers and studied them. They were red and inflamed. It wasn’t really any wonder—it hadn’t been like he could stop using his hand to give it time to heal right. Peeling off the cloth stung, and he looked down at the hand unhappily, eyes following the cuts down his fingertips and over his thumb pad.

“Младенец,” said the Huntress softly, looking at the hand too. She let go of it then and gently took his face in her hands again, eyes scanning the cuts.

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad, huh?” said Quentin quietly after a second, not really sure what to make of the way she was looking him over.

Opposite him, Feng was watching too, looking interested, hands still absently running along the wooden duck.

The Huntress stood up and patted his head gently, then held up a hand in the universal gesture for “ _wait,_ ” and slipped back outside.

“You don’t think this is going to be a problem like last time, right?” asked Quentin, just a little bit concerned now, and remembering the way Feng had tried to get him to look less injured the first time they’d tried this, because she’d thought the Huntress might think he was too injured to keep.

“No,” said Feng, “I think she’s just worried about you because you got your face cut up.”

 _Well, that’s fair,_ thought Quentin, _I’m worried about me because I got my face cut up._

It had only been four days, but he hated that especially, because he knew exactly why Freddy had done it. Quentin had never been immensely proud of how he looked or anything, but now he was actively avoiding looking at reflective surfaces. It wasn’t like that made it so he could actually forget, though. Even if he wasn’t looking at it all the time, everyone else was, and he was horribly aware of that. Constantly.

“So,” said Feng, setting the duck down on her bed and hopping off it to explore the room a little. The ropes she was using to anchor them to the ceiling were pretty long, and they could easily move about the whole space and still have room to spare.

 _I bet we’re going to get the ropes tangled all over each other if we’re not careful, though,_ thought Quentin, who had walked multiple dogs at the same time before and knew what he was talking about.

Feng stopped by the boarded up former entrance and kicked at it absently with a shoe. “How long do you think we got before Huntress gets in trouble?”

“I don’t know,” answered Quentin, looking out the slit window again, then watching Feng tug on boards, “She’s never caused trouble before, I don’t think, so I don’t think the Entity will be looking for it. Kru—the Nightmare—he gets away with a couple hours sometimes, and the Entity has to be looking for his trials to be off. So I think the Huntress should get at least a few hours before we’re in trouble. Maybe…four? Three? How long did the actual trial last?”

“I don’t know, like fifteen minutes maybe?” said Feng, “It was a short one.” She gave up on the wall and leaned against it, fiddling with the knot at her throat. “That makes sense, though. So, we got maybe two-five hours to get out of here without causing critical damage. Sooner the better, but not a big time rush.”

Quentin immediately thought of how many jokes Meg would have made about that because of the Nickelodeon band. _I’ve been hanging out with her too much. It’s rubbing off on me._

“I still think the windows are our best bet,” said Quentin, “It should be easier to break one plank than knock down a whole door. At least the ropes shouldn’t be hard to cut—with the hook up there.

Feng followed his gaze up and nodded. “Yeah, good strategy. We should wait till she’s pretty distracted or like, taking a nap though maybe, because if she catches us trying to run?” Feng made a slitting motion across her throat.

 _Point taken,_ thought Quentin, looking up to where the ropes were tied. _I wonder if it would be easier to kick out a window and then cut these, or if we should get the ropes first and then the plank?_

The door opened again, and Quentin and Feng turned, looking like two kids who had been caught trying to sneak out after curfew, even though they weren’t actually _doing_ anything other than _talking_ treason, and the Huntress didn’t speak English.

She stood in the doorway, a little bowl in her hands, and looked over at Feng by the far wall. Feng innocently tucked her hands behind her back, as far away from the rope she’d been fighting with as possible.

“Hi,” said Quentin, hoping that the Huntress hadn’t noticed what Feng was doing, and that he would distract her if she had. _Damn it, Quentin, you actually know how to say that one in Russian and you’re still doing this._ “Привет.”

The Huntress turned to him and smiled, then nodded, pausing to close the door behind her before she walked over. He noticed as she got close that she wasn’t exactly holding a bowl—she was holding a mortar and pestle, with something green that she had mashed up inside. He’d seen Claudette do something similar a lot of times, with one she’d made for herself.

She set the mortar on the bed beside him and reached out a hand, palm up, like she wanted him to give her something.

 _Uh,_ thought Quentin, _Shit. This—hang on. I think—_

He held out his hand, hoping he was interpreting this correctly, and she smiled at him and took it gently in hers, then with her right hand scooped two fingers into the poultice she’d made and started to cover the cuts on his hand with it.

Touch against the cuts hurt, and he flinched instinctively, fighting not to jerk his hand away. The Huntress looked up at him sympathetically and reached up and patted his cheek.

“Все нормально,” she said reassuringly.

Quentin looked over at Feng just in case she knew what that meant, but she shrugged at him, looking kind of fascinated by what she was watching. She got a little closer, trying to get a good look over the Huntress’s shoulder as she finished smearing the crushed plant over his hand and reached up for his face.

 _Oh boy,_ thought Quentin, bracing. It stung, the pressure of fingers against the deep cut that ran from the side of his face by his ear down his neck. He sucked in a sharp breath, trying not to move and make it worse.

“Все нормально,” said the Huntress again softly, eyes still on her work as she carefully traced cuts with her fingers.

The motions stabbed and hurt as she reached pieces of medical tape and peeled them off, and Quentin felt sick as he watched the pieces of plastic fall to the ground, but he tried to weather it. _I really hope I get those back when we get out of here,_ he thought, watching a piece of tape that had stuck to his jacket, _I don’t want to have to sit there while someone puts those on again._

“Is it helping?” asked Feng from just behind the Huntress.

 _Is it helping?_ “I don’t know,” said Quentin, grimacing as she touched another cut, “It hurts.”

“Bad?” she asked.

 _I don’t know,_ thought Quentin, _It’s not terrible, but it’s not fun either._ He looked down at the hand the Huntress had moved on from and realized on a very late delay that it had stopped hurting. Cautiously, he flexed the fingers of the hand. It barely hurt at all to do that.

_No way._

“Uh, I don’t know,” said Quentin, distracted but still vaguely aware he’d been asked a question, “I think it might actually be helping.”

 _You know what you’re doing?_ he thought in a sort of choked astonishment, looking up at the Huntress while she spread the mixture she’d made along his forehead, a concentrated look on her face as her fingers traced wounds.

“Like the stuff Claudette does?” asked Feng, looking even more fascinated.

“I—I think so,” said Quentin. _This shouldn’t be surprising, right? That she knows how to do this? You’ve been poisoned by her before._

He hadn’t thought about that, but the thought didn’t reassure him, it petrified him. How had he not thought about that before? All of his time trying to predict potential dangers, and he’d completely let it slip his mind that the Huntress also used toxins.

 _Stop it,_ he told himself, trying really hard to quell the sudden, intense panic that was fighting to spread along his body, _You’re fine. She’s not hurting you._

He was, technically though, tied up and trapped in a small room with a killer who was giving him some kind of drug. And he was just…letting it happen.

 _I shouldn’t have thought of it like that,_ Quentin cursed himself immediately, feeling like the room was dropping out beneath him. He closed his eyes, trying to get his emotions back under control.

_You’re okay. It’s okay. She’s not going to try to kill you._

_How do you know that?_ his mind asked him, _She was going to kill you earlier. Why on earth should you trust her?_

That was really hard to refute.

“Are you okay?” came Feng’s voice, “You look sick.”

“Yeah,” said Quentin, trying really, really hard to focus on making his breathing level, “I’m fine. I do feel kind of sick, but I’m fine.”

“Младенец?” came the Huntress’s voice.

Quentin made himself open his eyes. She was looking at him with her head tilted, concerned. _See?_ Quentin tried to tell himself, _It’s okay—you’re fine. She’s worried about you. She wouldn’t kill you._

“Матушка?” he choked out, like saying that would definitely keep the thought true.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Feng.

He looked over at her, and she looked a little concerned herself, which for Feng was a lot.

“Yeah,” he said, sounding a bit more convincing than he felt, “I’m okay. It just stings.”

“But it’s helping though?” asked Feng, an expression on her face like she was working through a problem in her head, “After?”

“Yeah,” said Quentin, because that was true. It did seem to be making the cuts hurt less after it was on.

Feng nodded. She walked over and knelt down beside the Huntress, who paused to look over at her.

“Can I help?” asked Feng, sticking a finger in the poultice and holding it up, glancing from the Huntress to Quentin.

The Huntress blinked at her, then smiled, and carefully moved Feng’s hand up to the deep cut on his chin, where Freddy had held a blade down and kept it there.

“Ow,” said Quentin, wincing and closing the eye closer to the cut for a second as Feng smeared paste over it.

“I just thought we should make it a family thing,” said Feng, grinning at him.

“Gee, thanks,” said Quentin, smiling back and immediately feeling better because she was teasing him.

The Huntress watched them and smiled and patted Feng on the head, then went back to administering the poultice to his cuts, humming to them as she went.

The tension he had felt before evaporated as she went this time, Feng awkwardly helping her and trading looks with him and trying not to laugh as she treated cuts on his neck.

“Don’t do anything to let her know about the other ones,” said Quentin, enormously relieved that he’d stitched up the holes in his shirt and jeans after getting back from his trial with the Legion that first day, “This might be helping the cuts, but if she decides to try and do something to the stitches all over my stomach it’s just not gonna be worth it.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” said Feng, grinning at him.

“It had better be,” replied Quentin, “That would be a massive betrayal.”

The Huntress finished her work and smiled at him “Все лучше.” She reached up and patted his head.

“Спасибо,” said Quentin, remembering the Russian version first this time. It had been sort of automatic, but he’d meant it too. It was nice of her to try and patch him up like that, and he appreciated it.

The Huntress nodded happily at the word and took the bandage she’d pulled off his hand earlier and started to wrap it back around his fingers.

“Oh, here,” said Quentin, reaching into a pocket with his free hand and taking out a fresh roll of gauze, medical brain taking over on instinct, “I have clean ones.”

The Huntress glanced up at the gauze and he unrolled a little of it to show her exactly what it was, and she took it from him and started to wrap the hand again, still humming.

“That song’s kind of a bop when she’s not trying to kill you,” said Feng, folding her arms over each other on the edge of his bed and placing her chin on top of them, “She sings it differently.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Quentin, remembering thinking that himself last time he’d been here with her. He hadn’t ever seen her so close up for so long before. It was hard to see much of her face past the mask, but she had dark eyes, and beneath the gauzy material on the back of her mask, short-cropped brown hair—barely even a pixie cut. Being bandaged by her was a surreal experience. She wasn’t exactly being what he would have thought of as _careful_ wrapping up his hand, but she wasn’t being rough either. It was like what someone with a much higher pain tolerance level or no experience being hurt might think of as being careful.

 _Philip said you grew up alone, feral,_ thought Quentin, _I wonder if that’s true, or if the Entity was lying about it. I wish I could talk to you and ask._ He tried to imagine what that would be like, growing up with no parents. Alone, in the woods. It was hard to really picture. _If you’re kind of more like a nice wild bear than a regular person, I wonder why you wanted kids so much?_

Maybe it had just been lonely.

Wouldn’t anyone get lonely, isolated in the woods? Even somebody completely feral?

 _She’s not totally wild, though,_ he thought, watching as she finished wrapping up his hand and tied a knot in the gauze, _She knows what beds are and toys are and sort of how to cook meat, I think, and do this—and talk, a little. And she’s—_ “Ah!” he said out loud, caught off guard and more just as a sound of surprise than an actual scream as she reached for his head, deftly hooking a loop of gauze around his face and tightening it.  

“She’s just bandaging your face,” said Feng, completely unphased.

“I know,” he replied, trying to see her past the hands that were now winding fabric over his nose, “But how am I going to see if she does that? I have cuts everywhere!”

“You’re gonna look like a mummy,” observed Feng, watching.

“Really,” he said to the Huntress, putting his hand around one of her wrists and trying gently to suggest maybe she should stop this, “I’m fine—that’s good.”

She removed his hand with her other one, patted his head, and kept going.

Quentin sighed.

Feng grinned at him.

“It’s not funny,” said Quentin unhappily as the Huntress kept winding bandages, “Some of those cuts go right past my eyes. How am I going to see anything?”

“I’ll poke you eye holes,” said Feng.

 _Typical,_ thought Quentin, a little bit reassured by her uncaring attitude, because if she’d actually taken it seriously as a threat to them at all, Feng would have cared at least a little.

The Huntress didn’t blind him, though. She was careful, winding the thin gauze around his face in measured, precise movements, concentrated and gentle, and Quentin ended up with a lot less bandages than he’d expected—just a couple of loops around his head slantwise and a few horizontal pieces over his nose and one over his forehead to keep them in place. Chunks of the cuts ended up still open to the air, and he had both eyes still working fine when she finished—probably looking a lot more like your basic cartoon character with bandages on their head from her patch job than the mummy Feng had predicted.

“See?” said Feng as the Huntress surveyed her good work and stood up, “Not so bad. You were being a big baby over nothing.”

“Your compassion is overwhelming,” said Quentin, not actually minding the ribbing at all.

The Huntress followed his gaze and glanced over at Feng, and then back at him. She smiled and put her hands against his cheeks, cupping his face. “Все лучше,” she said, looking incredibly pleased, and bumping his nose with hers.

It was a weird thing for someone to do, but he smiled reflexively because she seemed so happy, feeling an emotion he couldn’t really place.

She stood up then, picked up her mortar and pestle, patted Feng’s head in passing, and went back to the door.

Feng went right after her, and the Huntress didn’t notice she’d made it out of the room too until they were both on the far side of the door, Feng’s rope still with some slack in it, and the Huntress turned around and followed the rope on the ground through the door and behind her to where Feng was standing, looking innocent as could be. The Huntress blinked at her, surprised.

“Нет,” said the Huntress, and even without Feng’s help he would have known that meant ‘ _No’._ She picked her up in one arm and brought her back into the room, but the second she turned her back to go, Feng slipped out behind her again.

The Huntress turned to shut the door and saw the rope again and turned to see Feng behind her and let out an almost indignant sigh. “Нет,” she said again, picking Feng up and putting her back on the floor inside the room. This time she held up a hand. “Оставайся.”

Feng nodded. The Huntress backed up, watching Feng this time, and Feng started to go with her anyway.

 “You’re gonna make her mad,” warned Quentin, trying not to laugh.

“Нет,” said the Huntress, pushing her back into the room and holding up a hand, “Вы. Оставайся.”

“No, I’m lowering her defenses,” said Feng, and she kept trying, pushing right past the hand and trying to walk out. When the Huntress went to push her back again, Feng wrapped her arms around the Huntress’s arm and clung to it.

The Huntress looked down at her and sighed. She knelt down to be on Feng’s level. “Вы.” She pointed into the room, back towards Quentin. “Оставайся.”

Feng didn’t let go. The Huntress looked at Quentin.

_Don’t look at me, I didn’t do anything. And I definitely can’t stop her._

She sighed again and lifted Feng up by the back of her shirt like a kitten, walked to the bed, and dropped her onto it. “Оставайся!” she said, a lot more sternly.

“You better do it this time,” said Quentin, “I think she means it.”

The Huntress started to back up, and Feng hopped off the bed. “Оставайся!” said the Huntress.

Feng kept coming.

“You’re gonna get us in trouble,” said Quentin, resigned to the truth and watching it unfold.

The Huntress picked Feng up again and set her down on the bed, this time taking the spare slack from the rope around Feng’s neck and winding it around one of the bedposts a couple of times before letting go. As soon as she was free, Feng went to un-wrap it, but it easily bought the Huntress the time she needed to make it out the door and close it behind her.

“Damn it,” said Feng, dropping her rope slack onto the floor, “Cheater.”

“Why were you doing that anyway?” asked Quentin.

“I wanted to see how much I could get away with,” replied Feng, flopping back on the bed, “For when we have to escape. Plus I wanted to see the doors. The other ones—if they had locks on them. I don’t think they do, but they have bolts.”

 _That’s right,_ thought Quentin, remembering this room wasn’t the only modification to the house, _If we break out back into the main house, we have more doors to get through._

“I still think the windows are a better bet,” he replied.

“Yeah, probably,” agreed Feng. “Plus,” she added after a second, “It was kind of fun.”

 _Messing with her?_ “How did she do this anyway?” asked Quentin because he didn’t really know how to respond to what Feng had just said. He gestured around them to the little room, with its two beds and toys and new rug. “We all thought that changing her home base wasn’t going to affect trials.”

“I guess she really, really thought it would,” said Feng, shrugging, “Must have really wanted it.”

Quentin hadn’t noticed it before, but the old rocking horse type toy that had been in the alcove was in here now too—in a corner. She’d polished it. _I guess she did,_ he thought, feeling something it took him a second to realize was guilt.

He took the rabbit mask he’d made out of his pocket and looked down at it. The pretty geometric shapes he’d painted over it were vaguely similar to the pattern on the blanket on the bed she’d made for him. They were both blue, too.

“You gonna give it to her?” asked Feng, pulling her bird necklace out from under Nea’s shirt and looking down at it.

“I don’t know,” said Quentin slowly, turning the mask over and then putting it back into his pocket, “I mean—yeah, eventually. Shouldn’t I wait till we go? Maybe I’ll…leave it on the bed. Like, beside the toy she left out.”

Somehow that thought actually made him feel worse.

 _That’s not fair,_ thought Quentin, _I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not my fault it’s like this. We can’t stay here. I’m trying. I’m doing my best._

“She’s got a pretty cool collection,” said Feng, standing up on her bed for the extra height and trying to reach out far enough to touch the toys and baubles hanging from the hooks and ropes in the ceiling.

Quentin nodded. “Wonder where she got them all. Do you think she made them?”

“Who knows,” said Feng, grasping at a toy hanging from the ceiling that looked like a little orange fox, “Hey, help me get this down.”

“What?” asked Quentin, going ahead and hopping off his bed to offer her a knee to use as a stool anyway.

“Because what else are we gonna do?” said Feng, climbing up, which was only very slightly painful, because his right leg had made it out his near-death experience pretty unscathed. “I’m curious.”

“Did you get it?” he asked, trying to see past her.

“No, I still can’t reach,” said Feng, trying to balance herself with a hand on his shoulder, “You probably can’t pick me up huh?”

“Not right now I don’t think,” said Quentin, “I guess I could try.”

“I’ll just pull over the bed,” replied Feng.

They heard the bolt on the other side of the door slide, and the Huntress opened the door, looking in in surprise and, for just one second, alarm at what they were doing. Quentin hadn’t thought to drop Feng because it might look like they’d been going for the ropes until he saw the look on her face, but the Huntress followed the line of Feng’s arm up to the fox she was trying to grab, and immediately relaxed.

 _Oh thank God,_ thought Quentin, _That could have been bad._

Pausing to set down a large something that had been in her arms that Quentin hadn’t gotten a good look at, the Huntress walked in and picked Feng up, balancing her easily on one arm like it was a seat, and pointing questioningly at the toy fox.

“Yes please,” said Feng, grinning.

“да,” added Quentin, remembering that too, because _yes_ and _no_ were the only two chunks of Russian spoken much in movies, but those two came up so frequently that basically everyone knew them.

The Huntress reached up and unhooked the fox for her, then handed it over and set Feng down.

Feng took the toy happily, looking it over. “Спасибо!”

“She doesn’t talk much,” commented Quentin, watching the Huntress smile and pat Feng’s head, “How much of what we say in Russian do you think she understands?”

“I dunno,” said Feng thoughtfully, “Maybe all of it. We don’t know much. ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ and ‘Mom’ for sure. And I think ‘Hi’. Not so sure about ‘Thanks,’ but she’s getting the tone of voice. I think she gets what we mean even if she doesn’t _get_ what we mean. Philip said that she grew up alone since she was really young. What’s the youngest you could be and survive alone?”

“I don’t know…Seven maybe?” guessed Quentin, “Eight?”

As they talked, the Huntress went back outside the room to retrieve whatever she’d set down.

“Is six too young?” asked Feng.

“I’d think so,” said Quentin, “But I guess I don’t know.”

“How much would you remember about speaking English if you didn’t hear any after you were seven?” asked Feng.

Quentin tried to think about that, but it was another hypothetical that was really, really hard to picture. “I…guess it would depend on how long I’d been alone. If people don’t grow up knowing a language, what does it sound like in their head when they think?”

“Eww,” said Feng, “Don’t ask that. That’s way too complicated. It’s gonna make my head hurt thinking about it.”

“Sorry,” said Quentin, still wondering about that. _You’d…you’d remember what you’d learned already really well, right? Because even if you had no one to talk to, you’d be talking to yourself in your head every day._ He wasn’t sure though.

The Huntress came back in and set down a flat piece of wood she was using like a tray in the middle of the floor. On it, there were three plates piled really high with chunks of smoked meat.

 _Not this again,_ thought Quentin, immediately feeling queasy.

“Oh my god! Yes!” said Feng, apparently feeling absolutely nothing like him, “Meat! I haven’t had meat since I got here! I love Claudette and her stuff, but oh my god, real food!”

It did sound pretty good when she said it that way, but Quentin was looking at the plate and still feeling nauseous. _How are you so optimistic about this?_

“What if it’s human meat?” asked Quentin nervously as the Huntress adjusted the platter on the floor and sat down herself, patting opposite sides of the tray for them to come and join her.

“Come on,” said Feng, sliding off the bed, “Where would she even get that?”

“Us,” said Quentin, distressed and coming to join her but a lot more slowly and less enthusiastically, “We’ve been slaughtered by her before, remember? And she hunts us like animals. The Clown cuts off people’s fingers and keeps them—what if she does the same thing, to eat later? What if you take a bite of that and you’re eating your own arm, or David’s foot or something?”

The thought was incredibly disgusting.

That did make Feng pause. She looked down at the meat, which was definitely on the rare side of being cooked, and considered it a little nervously. She looked back across the tray at him, trying to chill out. “You’re probably worrying about nothing,” said Feng, no longer sounding totally sure.

The Huntress looked pleased when they sat down with her, and after seeing that they were settled in, she picked up a chunk of meat and dug in. Quentin tried not to gag as he watched her chew.

After a second of eating happily, the Huntress looked up and noticed that neither of them was joining her, and lowered her food, looking from one to the other expectantly.

 _Damn it,_ thought Quentin, starting to freak out internally, _She’s gonna get mad._

Hesitantly, Feng picked up a piece of meat and started to raise it towards her mouth, then chickened out. “You know what,” she said quickly, dropping the food back on her plate, “I have an idea. Let’s just ask her. Do you have anything to draw with?”

“No,” said Quentin, a little confused.

“Wait, I got it,” said Feng. She stuck her finger in the juice that had pooled at the bottom of the plate and reached over and drew, on the slab of wood, a slightly better than stick figure with four legs and a head and a small tail and antlers, and then a small round thing with a curly tail Quentin was pretty sure was supposed to be a pig, a pretty good rabbit, and a human shape. The Huntress watched her, seeming confused but intrigued. When Feng finished, she pointed to the Huntress, and then the plate, pantomimed swinging an ax, pointed to the plate again, and then to her drawings. The Huntress looked really confused.

 _That was actually pretty good,_ thought Quentin, _I think I would have got what she meant._

Feng tried repeating the motions, picking up a piece of the meat this time and pointing to the things she’d drawn. The Huntress tilted her head thoughtfully, studying the tray.

After a few seconds of Feng pointing with sinking hope from the food to what she’d drawn, the Huntress’s eyes lit up and she picked up Feng and stood up without warning, carrying her out the door. Quentin got to his feet as quickly as he could, trying to follow. The Huntress hadn’t taken Feng very far past the room, but she had cleared the doorway, so he slipped out behind her, trying to figure out what on earth was happening, and where she was going, and if she’d forgotten that if she went a whole lot farther Feng would start choking on the rope.

Standing on the threshold of her main room, with its fireplace and table, the Huntress held Feng in the crook of one arm and pointed to the chandelier of antlers hanging from the ceiling, looking proud.

_Oh thank God, it’s some kind of deer._

“We’re eating that?” asked Feng, pointing too.

The Huntress probably didn’t know exactly what she was actually asking, but she nodded, and made a gesture over her head in first one direction, then another, tracing an invisible shape.

 _Oh—antlers!_ thought Quentin, picking that one up faster. She was trying to show off that it had had big antlers. _She’s proud of that,_ thought Quentin, looking up at her in the candlelight and smiling without noticing it because the Huntress had such an uncomplicatedly pleased look on her face. _And she thinks Feng will think it’s cool._

“Woah, that big?” asked Feng, picking up the gesture as easily as he did, “Very cool.”

The Huntress nodded at her and smiled and turned to go back in, and as she did, she noticed him standing beside her for the first time and looked surprised. She tilted her head and smiled at him after a second and ruffled his hair, then held out her hand. Quentin took it, and she walked them both back in and set Feng back down by her plate.

“What a relief,” said Feng, smiling at Quentin as he sat down opposite her, “Not gonna lie—you had me freaked. But I’m gonna so enjoy this now, even if it’s kind of raw. I miss fish like you wouldn’t believe,” she added mournfully.

Quentin hadn’t stopped to think about what kinds of food he missed, or other little things like fresh clothes, and showers, and beds, and heaters. He wondered then for the first time what he _did_ miss, other then people. _God, I miss a lot of stuff,_ thought Quentin, slowly reaching down and picking up a piece of meat. Feng had already chowed down, and the Huntress was eating, and she’d said deer or elk or something, so he probably…

Still hesitant, Quentin took a slow bite.

It was really, really, unbelievably good.

Maybe just because he hadn’t had any kind of meat since, like Feng, getting here, maybe because it was actually good—he didn’t know. But it was like steaks, and burgers, and jerky, and meatloaf, and a lot of other things he’d completely forgotten about until he bit down.

Those things had been so comforting before. It wasn’t something he really ever consciously thought about back then, but it had been really nice to be able to go home after a rough day and drink a soda and just eat a bag of M&Ms, or sit down to whatever dinner his dad had made. It was comforting.

 _I missed this,_ thought Quentin, eating a little faster, slowly realizing he was hungry and wanting the food more.

On top of that, it was fun. He realized that too, looking up and seeing the Huntress happily ripping a piece of meat free from a bone with her teeth, and Feng using her fingers to tear her slabs of meat into little pieces to eat one at a time. It was warm in the cabin, and the candles were nice, because it was sort of human—intentional light, controlled. And he was having dinner in the way people meant when they said they were having dinner—a little bit formal, sitting down at a table, and Feng was enjoying it, and the Huntress was too—not just the food, but every so often he saw her look over at him or Feng and look incredibly, genuinely pleased that they were liking what she’d made for them.

That realization kind of hurt, because it was painfully familiar, and sad in a way he couldn’t put words to. But in spite of that, he still felt happy. Happy to be with them, and eating real food, for whatever it was worth in this place.

The Huntress had given both of them pretty sizable servings, but Feng and Quentin both managed to scarf down all of it in pretty decent time. She’d finished before they had, though, and sat between them for several minutes just watching them and looking happy. And honestly, the whole thing had been kind of nice. When the food was gone, the Huntress took the slab of wood back out of the room and they’d started to talk again, but she’d come back in a lot faster than they were expecting. Every time she’d left before that she’d been gone at least a few minutes, but this time it was maybe one minute, tops—she didn’t catch them doing anything suspicious, though, which was good because that had probably been next on the docket. Luckily for them, they’d both been full and pretty content, so they’d still just still been sitting on the floor talking about how weird it was to be served dinner by the Huntress, of all things, and how fantastic it had been to eat a real meal, and how much the both of them missed pizza.

 _What now?_ wondered Quentin looking up at her as she opened the door, but feeling nothing other than genuine expectancy at the question, not annoyance or suspicion. He just wasn’t sure what else she wanted from them.

“Wow, I mean supper was fun, but it’s going to be really hard to sneak out if she keeps coming in like this,” said Feng in a voice that betrayed none of the subject matter.

 _Yeah, that’s for sure,_ thought Quentin. How long had it been? He hadn’t been keeping close attention, and he’d lost track at this point. It…had to have been at least an hour or two now, right? Minimum? _This isn’t great,_ he thought uncertainly, _We have to get going soon, or something bad will happen._

The Huntress came all the way in and shut the door behind her, and they could see then that she was carrying a large blanket.

“Oh no,” said Feng with great petty unhappiness, “She’s not gonna sleep in here with us, is she?”

“I don’t know,” said Quentin, watching as she hummed to herself and walked over to them, pausing to set the blanket on the ground. Quentin noticed as she did that there were a couple of books on top of it. _She can read?_

The Huntress lifted Feng up from under her arms and set her on her bed, then walked over to Quentin and hefted him up just as easily. He knew she wasn’t going to hurt him, but it was still a little hard not balk at being grabbed like that and moved around like a piece of furniture. _It’s fine,_ he told himself, and it seemed to be. She only moved him about four feet, and set him down on the other side of Feng’s bed.

“Hi,” said Feng as the Huntress let go of him and went to get her blanket, “This mean it’s supposed to be bedtime?”

“Then why are we both over here?” asked Quentin, “I have my own one.”

There was a pat on his shoulder, and he looked up in time to see the Huntress climb onto the bed between them, gently shoving them both a couple of inches to the sides to make room for her. Once she was up, she spread out the blanket over all three of them and looked from one to the other and smiled.

Quentin really didn’t know how to feel about that. It was so…surreal. And unknown. Everything that was happening. She still—there were still some little flecks of blood up on her mask, probably from trying to kill David earlier. _How am I supposed to feel about this?_ he thought hopelessly, and the huge woman hooked an arm around him, and the other around Feng, and pulled them close beside her, then picked up one of the two books from her lap and opened it.

 _Is she…is she going to read to us?_ thought Quentin, mind almost overloading with the thought of that, and the inability to properly place and store that kind of memory. _Why?_ He looked up at her. _Why are you doing any of this?_

He should have been scared. It was like being in a Grimm’s fairytale and kidnapped by some wild animal, more than anything real. And she was scary. She was terrifying. Quentin knew, of course, why someone would do something _like_ what she was doing—his dad used to read to him, when he was a lot younger, but why? Why was she wanting to do this?

 _You don’t even really know us,_ thought Quentin, _And you’ve…I have seen you kill Feng—I’ve been killed by you. And you never once cared about that. I just can’t understand it. How are you like this? You have been so nice to us today._

Technically, none of this should have seemed nice, or comforting, or even okay—even if the Huntress wasn’t trying to actively murder them right now, she’d kidnapped them—they were tied up. Not maybe in the traditional sense, but there was a rope around his neck to keep him from leaving. They were prisoners. So why? Why did any of this feel okay, or like it was nice, or mattered at all?

Above him, the Huntress looked down at him and ruffled his hair, then opened the book and pointed to the first page and looked back at him, waiting for some kind of reaction.

There was a picture of a dragonfly, and a decorative border like vines on the pages, surrounding some words Quentin recognized a Cyrillic, but had no idea the meaning of.

He looked back up at the Huntress, expecting her to read, but she just turned the page. There was a full color illustration of a wolf looking at a sheep, but not like it was going to eat it—more like the way dogs looked at animals they hadn’t known existed before. Once she had seen him and Feng both look at the illustration, the Huntress turned the page again. The story seemed to actually start here—a title and text, but she just pointed to the black and white illustration of a sheep and a wolf and some flowers that sat above the title, and then turned the page again, flipping carefully past pages of just text until she found the next picture, and then stopping to let them see it.

 _She doesn’t know how to read a book,_ thought Quentin, feeling deeply sad for reasons he didn’t really know, _But she’s trying to read it to us anyway._

 _It’s kind of better this way, maybe,_ thought Quentin, looking over at Feng who shot him a disbelieving but also excited look from across the book, and then back up at the Huntress as she dedicatedly turned pages, making sure she didn’t miss an illustration. None of them could read Cyrillic, and they wouldn’t have understood what she was saying if she had read it to them. For once, they were all on equal footing.

There were a lot of pretty pictures she was excited about getting them to see—some she clearly liked more than others, because when she would reach them, she would point out specific parts of the illustration to make sure they’d noticed before going on. She got to an image of a fox and excitedly turned to Feng and tapped the orange toy she was still holding, and Quentin thought for the first time tonight that for just a moment Feng looked sad.

Quentin had no idea what the story even could have been about. There was a spread with a picture of a cow looking across a brook at a bullfrog right beside one of a lion caught in a net, but none of that seemed to bother the Huntress. He wondered if she knew what all the animals she was seeing were.

When she finally finished with the book, the Huntress carefully put it back down and picked up a second one, checking to see their expressions before she kept going. She seemed encouraged by however they’d look to her, though, and went on. The cover of the second book was more weathered, and had a snake on it. The illustrations in this one were black and white, like the ones in old _Hardy Boys_ novels, but someone had gone over a lot of them with a crayon, adding bright splashes to the pages, and after an illustration of a bear looking up at a panther, and some wolves with a small boy, and some elephants, and a tiger, Quentin was fairly certain it was a copy of _The Jungle Book,_ which was so painfully fitting a choice that he sort of wished it could have been anything else. The Huntress seemed fascinated by this one though—especially the action. The elephants lifting a child, the tiger ready to kill, the shape of the wolves, and the bear, and the panther. The child climbing, trying to survive.

 _I wonder if you picked out your favorites to show us,_ thought Quentin, watching her expression as she pointed to pictures before moving on.

They were about halfway through the book when Feng glanced over and said, “Hey, Quentin, I think we should pretend to fall asleep.”

“What?” he asked, and the Huntress paused her semi-reading to look from one to the other of them, “Why?”

“I think she might not leave until we do,” said Feng, “And it’s been a long time. We’re gonna all get in trouble if this keeps up. But can you do that, without…?”

 _Without falling asleep for real?_ “Yeah,” said Quentin, “Easy.” The Huntress was still looking at them, trying to figure out what that was about, so Quentin pointed to the picture on the page of a cobra and said, “Pretty neat, right?” hoping that might be a good enough distraction to get her to go back to reading. It was.

After about ten more pages, Feng started to very convincingly nod off opposite him, and Quentin took the cue started to pretend to fall asleep himself.

That part was easy—pretending to fall asleep—he was so fucking dead tired anyway, he could have passed out on command if he’d wanted to. Faking it was breeze. The hard part was not actually doing it. He’d told Feng it would be easy, but he’d been lying. Quentin usually didn’t even close his eyes, just to make sure sleep wouldn’t accidentally happen, and even though his mind knew that his adrenaline was pumping so hard at the thought of actually falling asleep it was probably physically impossible for it to happen right now, it didn’t stop the act of faking it from being absolutely miserable.

For about a minute after Quentin had stopped pretending to nod off and started pretending to be asleep, he could hear the Huntress still turning pages beside him. Then the sound stopped, and he felt her shift against him. The arm that had been around his shoulder moved and he felt her gently lower him against the mattress, and then the blanket over the three of them moved off of him and the Huntress stood up.

He could hear her, picking things up and setting them on the ground, and she took a few steps away and he could hear her fiddling with something, and then she came back, and arms slid under his knees and shoulders and she picked him up, carrying him carefully across the room and laying him on top of his own bed.

Quentin kept still, trying hard to make his breathing seem regular and calm, like someone asleep would. Over him, he heard the Huntress start humming faintly to herself, and she pulled his blanket up over his shoulders and stroked his head for a moment, and then he heard her walking back over to Feng.

When he was pretty sure her back was turned, Quentin opened his eyes just the tiniest fraction, and saw her tucking Feng in under the blanket on her bed like she had him, and then pause to pat her cheek. He closed his eyes again immediately, afraid to be caught when she turned around.

It was kind of nice, though. It shouldn’t have been, all things considered, but she was sort of like a mom—she was trying to be like one, he was pretty sure. The whole thing was so…different than life had ever been for him here; it was hard to wrap his head around. He could hear her walking around the room, doing something—maybe blowing out candles—he wasn’t sure. Whatever it was took a few minutes, and with his eyes shut, soaking in the comfort of the blanket and the softness of the grass mattress, Quentin thought less and less about the situation as a whole, and more and more about not falling asleep, until that was the only thing he was thinking. _Don’t fall asleep._ Over, and over in his head. He was so fucking tired. It was so, ridiculously hard to stay awake laying down somewhere this comfortable with his eyes shut. _I haven’t slept in eight fucking years. I just want to go to bed._ He really, really didn’t though. More than anything. As much as his body wanted to shut down, he mentally had himself at gunpoint, struggling to do anything but.

As the struggle and his focus got more and more internal, Quentin lost track of what was going on in the room, caught up in his head. There wasn’t ever really a second where Quentin was in danger of actually falling asleep. His focus was razor-sharp, and his motivation could not possibly have been stronger, but the thought of what would happen if he did mixed with the overpowering fear that had been pressing down on him for the past four days and the faint sound of the Huntress humming and the desperation and racing thoughts in his head, and for just a second, Quentin spaced out and thought for some reason that he had. There was an instant where everything around him felt surreal, and false, and slowed, and he could have fucking sworn he heard that deep, awful laugh he knew far too well, and in his panic, he shot upright, screaming, trying to wake himself up from a sleep that hadn’t really had him.

The Huntress turned to stare at him in surprise in the moonlit room, quickly dropping her rolled up blanket and hurrying to his side.

Quentin was breathing panickedly fast, trying to reassure himself he was awake and that this wasn’t a dream, and then he saw her rushing over.

 _Fuck! Fuck—I can’t believe I did that. I’m sorry Feng—I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Shit! What the hell is wrong with me? _He leaned forward and put his head in his hands, heart pounding in his chest at imagined danger, still feeling sick.

The Huntress reached his side and put a hand on his shoulder and he looked up at the worried face bent over him, and felt overwhelmed.

This wasn’t right; none of it was right. _She wouldn’t kill you._ He tried to reassure himself and to believe that, but another part of his mind was asking him why. Why he was trying to believe this woman who had killed him before and tried to murder his friends a couple of hours ago wasn’t a threat—and wasn’t that bad, and wrong in its own way?

“Младенец моя?” said the Huntress worriedly, putting a hand on his face, and Quentin tried not to pull away instinctively from the touch.

 _Get it together!_ he told himself angrily, _Get over this, and pretend to go to bed so you and Feng can go back to the campfire. Everything today got messed up enough as it is. Just—please._

“I’m okay,” said Quentin out loud, voice quiet, “Sorry.”

The Huntress tilted her head, big dark eyes watching him, and then she climbed up onto the little uneven bed next to him and patted her lap for him to come sit.

 _No,_ thought Quentin despairingly, _I can’t’ do that._ She was trying to stay up with him because she knew he was scared, and that was sweet, but he didn’t want it. He wanted to be alone and to not think or feel anything.

She looked concerned when he didn’t move, and reached out for him, and Quentin shrunk back on impulse before he could stop himself, and she hesitated with her arm out, surprised. Tilting her head in the other direction, she studied him for a second, face worried and confused, and then she reached out again and turned her hand over, palm up, like she wanted to be given something. After a second, Quentin gave her his hand, because that’s what she’d wanted last time. She looked down at it, and the bandage on it, and thoughtfully held up her free hand and repeated the little four-fingered claw motion she’d made when she first found him today, looking thoughtful. “Опасность?” she asked, looking up at him.

“I don’t know,” said Quentin, feeling sick and tired, and so confused about why he was feeling like this when everything had been almost good a few minutes ago.

“Я убью Опасность,” said the Huntress, reaching over to touch his face again.

Quentin winced, but let her, forcing himself not to pull away this time. She noticed, and looked confused, fingers cupping his cheek gently.

“дома,” she said reassuringly, “Все нормально. Безопасный.”

She stroked his hair back behind his ear and Quentin felt his skin crawl. It was all wrong—there was no reason to feel like this. _You’re fine. She’s not going to hurt you._ His mind was working hard against him to remember things he didn’t want to think about.

He didn’t know what his expression looked like to her, but whatever it was couldn’t have been great, judging by the look on her face. She kept watching him, confused and concerned, and then something occurred to the Huntress suddenly and he saw her eyes light up. She held up a hand and hopped off the bed quickly and disappeared from the room. He could hear her feet padding swiftly along the wood floor outside.

Listening for sounds of her coming back, Quentin wondered uneasily where she was going.

“Are you okay?” whispered Feng almost imperceptibly from the other side of the room.

He’d momentarily forgotten she hadn’t been asleep for real. “Yeah, sorry—I don’t know what happened,” he replied in undertones. It was half true.

There was the sound of hurried footsteps then, and the door opened again, firelight spilling in from the outside, and the Huntress walked quickly over and climbed up on the bed beside him and held out a hand.

“Все нормально,”” said the Huntress, trying to coax him.

A little bit slower than he’d meant to, Quentin held out his hand for her again. She took it in hers, and then reached out with her other hand and Quentin recognized the shape of a hunting hatchet and for a second he thought she was going to lop off his hand and almost screamed, but he choked the sound down in his throat, and instead, she set the weapon in his hand and smiled at him.

He looked from it up to her, thoroughly unsure if he was actually allowed to have this.

She closed his fingers around the haft. “Осторожен,” she said in a warning tone, “Опасность.”

Quentin looked down at the hatchet, trying to process what had just happened. “С-Спасибо,” he said after a second, not sure what to do other than thank her.

Her face lit up and she patted his head. It didn’t feel so awful this time.

“Смотри на меня,” said the Huntress, unclipping a second hatchet from her belt and holding it up and back over her shoulder, like she was going to throw it.

Quentin watched and did his best to copy the motion. She smiled at him and nodded, then reached out and grabbed his wrist and held her hand over it so he couldn’t move it.

She held out her own hand with the hatchet and made a throwing motion while wriggling her wrist. “Плохой,” she said, shaking her head and looking back at him to see he got it. She repeated the throwing motion, this time wrist perfectly locked. “Хорошо,” she nodded.

“Lock the wrist,” repeated Quentin, trying again.

“Хорошо!” she said happily, grinning at him and ruffling his hair.

He smiled instinctively, glad she thought he was at least close to getting that so quick.

She clipped her hatchet back to her belt and turned until she was facing him completely, then took his hand in hers. “Опасность,” said the Huntress, pointing off out one of the windows and making a sweeping claw motion with her hand. She pointed to the hatchet he was holding and then tapped his chest with a finger, “убивать.”

Quentin nodded, closing his fingers around the haft and looking down at the sharp thing he’d been hit my so many times himself.

“Все лучше?” asked the Huntress, smiling at him.

 _I wish I knew what that meant._ “Спасибо,” he said, hoping thanking her would be a good enough answer, and meaning it.

She looked happy and nodded, then tapped the tip of the hatchet. “Oсторожен.” She ran her finger along the tip of the blade and then pulled it back, a note of caution in her voice, “Опасность.”

“I’ll be sure not to cut myself,” said Quentin with a nod, guessing at what she meant.

The Huntress smiled and reached over and took the hatchet out of his hand, and for a second he thought she was going to take it back and keep it, but she just set it down on the ground at the edge of his bed. “Опасность,” she said, repeating one of the words she’d just said as she pointed down at it. She motioned for him to come over again then.

 _I guess,_ thought Quentin, feeling a lot better than he had a few minutes ago. He didn’t go sit in her lap, but he did lean over and rest his head against her leg like a pillow, and she seemed to find that perfectly acceptable. She started to hum her lullaby and run her hand gently over his head, stroking it, and, feeling bad about how long he was keeping Feng waiting, Quentin shut his eyes and tried to pretend to sleep again.

 _It’s nice of you,_ he thought, feeling the gentle movement of fingers through his hair, _To stay up with me because you know I’m scared._ It made him homesick. It made him miss his dad. Which made him think about his dad, and his most recent memories of him. And a lot of other things.

He was thinking about them in a little bit of a different light than before, though. Since this trial had begun, Quentin hadn’t been able to understand why he was feeling the way he was feeling about anything. It was so complicated, with the Huntress—she wasn’t like Philip; she wasn’t doing anything on accident. But she wasn’t like the others either. She was like a wild animal, which made it complicated, but she was also like a person, which made it impossible. But beneath all of that—all of the things he knew he should be considering and trying to weigh and understand, there was something really simple. The Huntress was big, and scary, and a lot stronger and more powerful than he was, and for once in his life, in a way that was almost impossible to really understand, it was just nice to be at the mercy of someone like that, and shown it. No one was ever merciful. Not really—not because they just wanted to be. And more than that, she didn’t even want to hurt them. She actually liked him and Feng, and for whatever reason she had decided on, she was trying to take care of him, and look out for him, and that felt really, really…well. Sad. But also kind of peaceful. And homesick, in a way. There was a longing there, for something like this. To feel…safe. Even for a few seconds.

After staying and singing for several minutes after Quentin had pretended to fall asleep, the Huntress carefully got up and gently laid him back on the bed, tucking the blanket over him again, and stoking his head one final time before heading out the door.

He waited, in silence and stillness, for what felt like an enormous amount of time after he had heard the door shut—so long he almost became certain Feng had actually fallen asleep and he was going to have to get up and go over there and wake her up—when he heard Feng’s mattress shift under her and he opened his eyes.

She was sitting up, and in the bright moonlight coming in from outside the slit windows, he could see her hold a finger up to her lips, and then point to the hatchet at the foot of his bed and tug on the rope at her neck and make a slicing motion.

 _Right. Roger that._ Quentin slid out of bed as soundlessly as possible, picking up the hatchet and moving silently over beside Feng and deftly cutting through her tether with only a few sawing motions across the thick rope. As soon as she was free, Feng climbed back up on her bed and started trying to pry the plank over it free. There weren’t _nails_ exactly, not that he could see, but there were round shapes pounded in the sides of the board that looked like the end of nails, only made out of wood. While she worked on trying to tear a way out for them, Quentin picked up some of the slack in his own rope and went to cut it, but he hesitated with his hand on the back of the hatchet head. It felt wrong—not to be breaking out, but to use the hatchet—like he was betraying her trust. _Come on,_ he told himself, making his hands start sawing, _Don’t be stupid about this._

The hatchet cut through the rope quick, and they were both free.

Quentin got up beside Feng, raised the hatchet, and mouthed _“Let me.”_ She nodded and moved back, and he slid the head in and then wedged it horizontally between the frame of the sill and the added board, trying to leverage it free. After a second of watching him struggle, Feng put her hands on the haft with him and they tugged it together. There was almost immediately a loud CRACK and they both froze, terrified the Huntress would hear it and burst in the door, but after a few seconds of petrified silence, nothing happened, and Quentin reached up and tugged on the board and found it was loose now. He brought the hatched to the other edge, and Feng helped him again. There was a much quieter crack this time, and after waiting a few seconds to make sure they were still unnoticed, he set the hatched down on the ground and together, he and Feng pulled the slab of wood free. It was messy, and a little bit noisy, but they managed it, and the way in front of them was clear then. A hole big enough for a person to fit through.

“Come on,” whispered Feng almost inaudibly, “Before she hears something and comes to check it out.”

Quentin nodded. Feng slid out the window, feet-first, and as quietly as he could, Quentin followed her example, landing in the soft grass outside beside her. In the distance, he could read the aura of both exits, still lit up and waiting, from what was now probably several hours earlier.

“Which way?” asked Feng as soon as they were both free of the house.

“That one’s closer,” whispered back Quentin, pointing to the outline of an exit he could see almost dead ahead, just a little to the right.

Feng nodded and took off at a run, and Quentin sprinted after her. They’d only gone a couple of yards, though, when Quentin slowed down and finally came to a stop. He turned back and looked behind them, at the little square of light back into the house. Not sure why he couldn’t get his legs to move.

It took Feng a second to realize he wasn’t behind her anymore, and she came to a stop too and turned back. “Come on,” he heard her hiss.

Quentin hung back though. Eyes fixed on the house, the solid walls, and old keepsakes and rugs, and the two new beds they could still see through the window.

Feng came back for him and started to tug on his arm. “Quentin, come on. We gotta go.”

“I know we do,” said Quentin, looking from the house to her, still feeling a little distant. Feng let go, and he heard her start to head for the exit again, but he didn’t move to follow. He just turned his head back towards the window again. “It would be kind of nice though, wouldn’t it?”

Feng paused and turned around again and followed his gaze back into the room.

“You want to stay?” she asked, disbelieving.

“No,” said Quentin, “No—of course not, but. It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? She put a lot of work into that room. And we’d be warm, and safe there. Nobody trying to kill us all the time, no trials, nothing to be afraid of.”

“Safe—with—Quentin,” said Feng, still like she couldn’t believe he was saying this, “Quentin it’s not real. We would—what? Sit in the house forever? Alone—without Nea, or Laurie, or,” she paused for a second, trying to guess who his friends were, “David, or Claudette, or Kate.”

“Yeah,” said Quentin. “Yeah, you’re right.” He tried to shake himself, knowing this line of thought was stupid, and wrong. “It’s just kind of sad,” he said, glancing back over at Feng, “To leave it like this.” He looked back at the house again, feeling an ache in his chest, thinking about how different the last few hours had been from any others he had had in a long, long time. The way she’d been so excited to take them home. “It was…sort of good while it lasted, wasn’t it?””

Feng was quiet for a second, and he turned towards her, hoping she might agree, but she was giving him a hard look. They stood like that in silence for a moment, then she opened her mouth. “You think she can protect you from him?”

That stung, like she’d actually hit him. And he hadn’t been expecting it at all. “That’s not a very nice thing to ask,” said Quentin quietly after a second, putting his hands in his pockets and glancing away.

“Well, I’m not a very nice person,” said Feng.

It hurt that she’d said that, but it hurt more that she wasn’t wrong about him, and that he’d been so see-through she’d been able to tell that fast. It had been a happy thought, for just a minute. That this was somewhere he could be safe. But it wasn’t true, and she was right, it never had been. “No,” answered Quentin, looking back at the house, and then the ground, trying to avoid Feng’s gaze, “He’d probably just kill her too.”

“Why do you think that?” asked Feng.

Quentin shrugged. “He kills everyone.”

“You’re afraid to go back?” said Feng, guessing, “Because once we leave, it’s just a matter of time before you’ll get another trial, and that one might be the last one?”

 _It’s just a matter of time,_ echoed Quentin in his head, feeling exhausted. _I just want to go home. I want this to be over._ This place wasn’t home, but it wasn’t bad. It was a nice house, and the Huntress was good to them. Like a mom. Quentin hadn’t had one since he was very little, but he knew what they were supposed to be like, from books, and tv, and friends, and stories his dad had told about her. And Feng was right, he didn’t want to go back. He didn’t want to die, or to be hurt, or to be scared. He was so tired. He was so fucking, god damn tired.

Feng took his silence as an admission and scrunched up her face, thinking.

“It’s okay,” sighed Quentin, turning away from the building and trying to believe it, “I know I have to fight him again eventually.”

“Why?” asked Feng, and that surprised him again. “Why do you have to fight him?”

“Because it has to end,” said Quentin, not sure how else to answer, “One way or another.”

“But why does it have to be you?” said Feng, “Not Laurie, or Philip, or David, or me? Why do you have to fight him at all? –Aren’t we just trying to get away? If we escape and go home and he stays here, doesn’t that mean you win anyway?”

 _What?_ “I…guess,” said Quentin, because he hadn’t thought about that in a while, and feeling better for just a second before he remembered that that wasn’t really an option. “But. I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“But you don’t know that,” said Feng, “It might.” She took a step towards him and hesitated again, like she wasn’t really sure what she was supposed to do. “I know it would be better,” said Feng, “If you killed him. Or someone did. But you don’t have to to get away. Or be okay. Nancy didn’t, and she won, right?”

 _Well, yeah,_ thought Quentin, _But that’s different. For her—she’s—I’m here instead, and…_

It was different, but he couldn’t explain it. Because she was his friend, and he loved Feng, but she was hard on people, and he thought if he told her why she really might not ever forgive him. And that was a selfish reason not to, but he was so tired, and everything was already so goddamn difficult to handle, and he didn’t want that to happen.

“Right?” said Feng again.

“If we left him here and got out somehow, without him getting out too, other people would just come and take our place,” said Quentin after a second, “And that wouldn’t be okay.”

“No shit, but who cares? Maybe they’d just get out eventually too,” retorted Feng, “It’s not your problem.”

“It _is_ my problem,” said Quentin. He’d almost snapped at her, and he instantly regretted it. She stared at him, surprised.

“Why?” said Feng after a second, “You gotta stop blaming yourself for the fact he exists just because he hurt you before he hurt the rest of us. He’s not your fault.”

 _He is, though,_ thought Quentin miserably, looking back at the house again and wishing with every fiber of his being that he could go back, and stay, and let the story end there. It would be so much easier than going on.

 “You know how Philip got here,” said Quentin, still looking at the light through the window, and the little bit of a bed he could see inside.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Feng, watching him.

“The Killers all only got picked up by the Entity because they did something to get its attention,” continued Quentin, trying not to let anything he was feeling into his voice, but feeling crushed and dead inside, because what he was about to tell her was such a hard thing to accept, harder to talk about, worse to admit. “And they’d killed at least one person. Recently.”

“Yeah,” agreed Feng, “The Shape had just killed some people and was still chasing Laurie when she got grabbed. And Philip had just attacked his boss and killed him. But I don’t—”

“The Nightmare hadn’t killed anyone in weeks,” said Quentin, looking over at her because he felt like he had to, “when the Entity took us. He was chasing me, but I was still okay. He hadn’t even really hurt me yet. He’d cornered me, though. And I knew I was going to die. So I did what Philip did. I wanted him dead so badly, that I hoped, and I prayed, and I willed him dead with everything I had, because I thought that in a dream, that might matter. And it heard me.”

He saw her get it. Her eyes widened, catching the moonlight and reflecting the shock back at him.

“It’s my fault we’re here,” said Quentin, wishing he was dead, “And so is everything that’s happened because of us. I didn’t mean to, and I didn’t even know until Philip, and a few weeks ago, but I did this.” He looked into her face, feeling desolated and praying she might choose to forgive him. “I’m sorry. You have _no idea_ how sorry I am.”

Feng stared at him like she couldn’t believe what he was saying and sucked in a sharp breath, and he saw her eyes mist up.

_Fuck. Fuck, she’s really mad._

In one step, Feng closed the distance between them and smacked him. The blow was hard, and it stung against the cuts in his face.

“What is wrong with you?” snapped Feng, grabbing the front of his jacket and shoving him back, “How are you so _fucking_ stupid?”

“I’m sorry,” said Quentin, feeling an ache in his chest and backing up a little, remembering what had happened to him the last time he’d made one of the other survivors angry.

“You’re sorry?” said Feng, “You’re sorry?!” She shoved him again. “That’s the fucking problem! What’s wrong with you! God _damn_ it! All of you!”

She was definitely furious, but he didn’t know what to do about it. She just kept coming.

“You know what?” said Feng, “I see you guys and I think, ‘maybe something’s wrong with me—everyone here is so much nicer than I am,’ but it’s you guys who are wrong!” She shoved him again, palms slamming against his chest and hitting a cut, and it really hurt this time. “You’re all so goddamn ready to fall on your swords! Why do you live like this? I barely even feel bad when I actually _do_ bad stuff—you all go through all this shit, feeling awful about stuff that’s not your fault like it’s your obligation! You’re _sorry_? What’s wrong with you! You didn’t _ask_ for this!”

He backed up into a bush and almost fell over it. She kept going, relentless.

“You didn’t _ask_ to get attacked, or murdered, or stalked, or hurt! And you didn’t _ask_ the Entity to come put him here so he could hurt more people! You think for one second that if I asked someone for directions and they walked over and pulled out a gun instead and shot my girlfriend that I would feel like it was _my_ fault for asking for _directions_? No! I’d fucking go kill the bastard for shooting my girlfriend!” She grabbed the collar of his jacket and jerked him closer to her. “Do you really think that any one of us would blame you for getting kidnapped when you asked for help? What fucking kind of people do you think we are! Even _I’m_ not that shitty!”

“But,” protested Quentin, being smacked in the face by some emotional mood-whiplash, “If I hadn’t done that—”

“What?” asked Feng, letting go of him, tone vicious and patronizing at the same time, “He’d have stayed in the real world and killed everyone you knew and then done god knows what to who knows how many more people? And because of that, you’re not actually sorry he ended up here with you, because even though the shit he does is awful, if he wasn’t stuck here, it would be worse, and you think that’s a fucked up way to feel?”

He swallowed hard.

“No fucking _shit_ Quentin! That’s how we’d all feel!” shouted Feng, “Except I wouldn’t even feel that bad about feeling it!”

“Feng,” said Quentin nervously, thinking he saw something move back inside the house, “She’s gonna hear us.”

Feng didn’t seem to register that.

“You’re probably glad you’re here, aren’t you!” snapped Feng, “Because it’s like penance, for all the awful shit he does that you feel like you’re so goddamn responsible for. Well newsflash jackass! You’re not responsible! He fucks up people, and the Entity takes people, and you help people, and none of you control each other’s shit!”

“Feng,” tried Quentin, not sure how to argue or reply to any of this, but knowing he should, “It’s not the same—I can’t—”

“Even if you buy the bullshit your spouting,” she cut him off, “You know goddamn well that if it wasn’t for you, Laurie would be dead, and Dwight would be dead. Do you really think, even if we blamed you for the shit the Nightmare’s done, that that wouldn’t be worth more to us?”

“I…” said Quentin, voice catching in his throat and feeling humiliated and angry and hurt and a little bit better for all the being yelled at all at the same time.

The door to the Huntress’s cabin opened, and she saw them.

“Oh, fuck!” shouted Feng, grabbing his arm and tearing off for the exit, “Look what you did!”

They ran hard. The exit wasn’t far, but the Huntress was fast, and she was trying.

Quentin could see her over his shoulder, gaining with impossible speed, focused in on them like a heat seeking missile. But she didn’t look angry, which was the worst part, just alarmed.

They were desperate too though, and gasping for air with burning lungs, Feng and Quentin stumbled into the exit entry way and were halfway out before the Huntress reached the other end and called out to them.

“дитя!”

The sound was desperate and pained, and Quentin stopped. He expected Feng to try and drag him the last two feet, but she skidded to a stop as well, using his arm as an anchor, and they both looked back.

The Huntress stood there in the frame of the exit, breathing as hard as they were, holding out a hand. The look on what he could see of her face was pleading.

“We gotta go,” said Feng, sounding a lot less happy about it this time.

“She doesn’t even know why we’re doing this,” said Quentin. He tugged his arm free, and Feng let him.

Feng hung back, but Quentin turned and took a step back towards the Huntress.

She reached out for him, hopeful, and sad, and not understanding. “Младенец моя?”

“Quentin,” said Feng a lot more gently behind him, “We gotta go home.”

“I know,” he replied quietly, eyes still on the Huntress and her extended hand. The worry and yearning and hopefulness in her posture.

“No, I mean we gotta go home-home,” said Feng, “You too. I didn’t used to think that would be a real thing, but it might actually be now, with how things are changing. But you have to come too.”

He looked back at her, and he could tell she was worried too. She wasn’t crying, but her eyes were still bright in the moonlight.

“I know you want to stay,” said Feng, “I would too,” and she looked more pained than Quentin thought he’d really ever seen her look. “I didn’t have much of a mom either. I mean, I had one, but nothing I did was ever good enough for her. And I was really, really good at what I did. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get on a nationally ranked pro team in Esports, and to stay there? But that didn’t even matter, because what I was good at wasn’t something they cared about. Even though I was amazing. They never even came to my games. And now?” She gestured towards the Huntress. “There’s this big bear woman who likes me for no reason at all, just because I exist. You think I don’t want that too? Of course I do. She’s a killer and a kidnapper and a wild animal, but she’s still a better mom than mine ever was. This was the best day I’ve had in ages, but we can’t stay, Quentin. It isn’t real. There are people waiting for us, and they are real, and we have to go. If we stay, we’re only going to get her hurt too, and you know that.”

He did. Everything she was saying was right, and true, but it still hurt, and the Huntress was watching them with so much worry and hope, like her happiness was balanced on the head of a pin, ready to be saved and ready to be crushed.

“We gotta go back to the others,” said Feng after a second, “And then we have to go home, to our real families. Me too, even though mine is worse. But I’m taking you guys with me, so we’ll all be okay. It’ll work out. And you have to come, Quentin, even if that means leaving him here, behind. He’s not your fault. I don’t care what he did to you or you think you did because of him, you should get to be happy like everyone else, and if I have to break your legs and carry you out and have you hate me forever for it, I’m gonna do it, because you’re my friend. You’re mine, and I’m selfish, and I get what I want. I’m gonna make sure I get what I want for you, no matter what, even if you hate me. I don’t care.”

Quentin turned back from the Huntress to look at her again and she smiled at him, night wind blowing through her hair as rain began to drizzle around them in the forest like it always seemed to here. Not enough to really be called rain, just an emotion in the weather, not a change in it.

“But please don’t make me do that, this time or when we leave for good,” said Feng, “Just come with me.”

“Okay,” said Quentin quietly, and he tried to smile back at her, but it was hard to feel like smiling, “Do you want to leave her your necklace?”

“I did,” said Feng, “Back on the bed, like you suggested.”

He’d forgotten to do that, and that made him feel bad too. Slowly, Quentin took the rabbit mask he’d made out of his pocket and turned towards the Huntress and held it out.

She looked from it to him, confused, and he tossed it. It was a good throw, and she caught it easily and looked down at it, then back at him.

“Goodbye Mom,” said Quentin, “I’m gonna miss you. I wish I knew how to say that.” _I guess I sort of do,_ he thought, remembering the only other thing he’d known on his own before Feng how to say in Russian, _Not the good half though. Not the half that would have mattered._ “До свидания, Матушка.”

He turned around to go, and he heard the Huntress’s voice call out after him, desperate. “Подождите!”

Quentin turned. Back in the doorway, the Huntress pulled off her mask and let it drop to the ground, and for a second, he could really see her. Brown eyes and a dark powder spread along her eye sockets like war paint, a sharp nose, and high cheekbones. A round face, with short brown hair, shorter even than Dwight’s, but long enough for some of it to catch in the wind. _Completely human after all,_ he thought, feeling an ache in his chest as he watched her.

As quickly as she’d gotten the mask off, the Huntress did her best to put the one he’d made on, and that hurt worse than anything else she’d done, because he knew watching that she thought that if she did it, he might stay.

He hadn’t done an amazing job making the thing, and he knew that watching her straighten up with it on, blue patterns against the silver metal catching the light. One of the eye holes was just a bit bigger than the other, even though he’d thought he’d made them the same, and it was a little small. She looked back at him then, wearing his mask now, and stretched out her hand again, skirt fluttering in the breeze, and he wanted to go. He wanted so badly to go to her.

But he knew he couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” said Quentin, feeling awful, and sad, “I know you don’t understand, but I can’t go with you. I have to go home. But we’re going to make it out of here someday, and when we do, we’ll try to bring you with us. I promise.”

He looked over at Feng, who looked about like he felt, and she nodded at him. Quentin hadn’t seen her cry, but she must have, because there were streaks down the side of her face.

“До свидания Матушка,” said Quentin again, turning to go with Feng, “I’m sorry.”

“Подождите!” she called again, voice broken, almost a wail, and it cut through him. He looked back her chest was heaving with her own desire to cry. “Младенец моя, Пожалуйста!” she called after them, voice starting out strong and desperate and fading into something small and empty, begging, “Остаться. Я люблю тебя.”

“Do svidaniya, Матушка,” echoed Feng, taking his hand and mimicking what Quentin had said. "В гостях хорошо а дома лучше." She pointed to the Huntress. “дома Матушка.”

The Huntress looked confused and surprised by that, head turning from one to the other, trying to understand.

“We’ll see you again,” said Feng. She turned to Quentin. “Come on, let’s go home.”

He nodded and went with her, one last look over his shoulder at the Huntress as she stood alone at the edge of the woods, watching them leave, and then slowly sunk to her knees as the trial began to dissolve around them. They only had a few seconds now, and it would be over—just a couple of hours of being a kid again, of something that had been something good that couldn’t last forever—something they had to leave behind. But he hated that, and the sight was lonely. It hurt. And he didn’t want to leave her like that.

“Матушка!” Quentin called out to her, and she looked up at him as he did, and Quentin smiled at her and hoped that in some small way it might matter, and then the trial vanished around them, and they were back.

Not home though. Just back.

“Hey, can you all give us a second?” asked Feng abrasively the second they appeared, cutting off whatever the other people around the campfire had been starting to say in mass greeting when they materialized.

The others glanced at each other and quieted down, but looked kind of unsure, especially David and Jane, who were clearly waiting to hear what had happened.

 “Is everything okay?” asked Nea a little uncertainly.

“Yeah,” replied Feng, much less hostilely, “Just it was…a lot.” She turned back to Quentin and took his hand, towing him off away from the others. “We’ll be back in a second.”

The rest of the group traded looks and some under-their-breath comments, but let them go. Once the two of them reached a safe distance, Feng stopped and turned to Quentin and took a breath.

“I love you, Quentin, but the next time I hear you say something that fucking stupid, I’m gonna beat the shit out of you,” Feng snapped, whirling on him with as much anger as she’d had back in the trial, like she’d hit pause and play on an emotional state.

“Okay,” answered Quentin awkwardly, “I’m sorry.”

“If you! Mmmmhhh,” she growled angrily, sticking a finger in his face, “That’s offlimits too! No ‘sorry!’”

“Okay,” he said again, barely biting his tongue before letting out another ‘ _sorry.’_

Just as fast and unexpectedly as she’d started yelling at him, Feng put her arms around him and hugged him for a second before shoving back off abruptly and clearing her throat.

They stood there in an awkward silence for a minute, remembering. Trying to move through the memories and past them. Not sure what to say to each other about her.

“Was she reading _The Jungle Book_?” asked Feng after a second.

“Yeah,” Quentin replied, feeling absolutely spent, “I’m pretty sure.”

“That’s fucked up,” said Feng quietly.

“Yeah,” agreed Quentin.

“But we’ll be okay,” said Feng, half-statement, half-question.

“Yeah,” said Quentin again, without stopping to wonder if he thought it was true. “Well, I will—will you?”

“Will _you,_ ” retorted Feng really pointedly.

 _I don’t know,_ thought Quentin.

“Do you actually mean it when you say ‘okay’?” asked Feng, giving him a hard look, “Or do you still feel shitty about the Nightmare and you’re not going to change at all.”

 _Damn, she really gets right to the point and won’t let up._ “I don’t know,” answered Quentin honestly, “I’m kind of going through a lot right now.”

“Then stop feeling bad about it, and go through one less thing,” said Feng, “Don’t make me break your knees.”

“Okay,” said Quentin.

“Okay?” asked Feng suspiciously.

 _Right._ “I’ll try,” corrected Quentin.

“You better,” said Feng, “Now come on. We gotta go back and tell people all the weird shit that happened, and if I do it alone I might cry and ruin my image. You do the emotional stuff. You don’t have an image.”

“Gee, thanks,” said Quentin, smiling at her.

“Okay?” said Feng, holding out a hand.

He swapped the hatched out from his right hand to his left and took it. “Might as well. We have to, right? Anything to help us get home.”

“You still have the fucking hatchet?” asked Feng in disbelief, looking down.

“Oh, yeah, I guess so,” said Quentin, turning it over in his hand.

Feng brightened up considerably. “That’s a real weapon, Quin!—A killer weapon! Imagine what we might be able to do with that!”

That made him feel better too. There were a lot of people here he really wanted to kill.

“Come on,” said Feng, tugging him after her, enthusiastic instead of somber now, “Let’s show them!”

“Hey,” said Quentin, letting himself be dragged, “Do you think the Huntress will be okay?”

Feng paused. “Yeah, I think,” she replied, but Quentin thought she was lying.

“What did you say to her in Russian, there at the end? You didn’t teach me any of that,” said Quentin.

“Oh, that?” said Feng, “It’s just an old Zarya voice line. ‘To be a guest is good, but it’s better to be home.’”

“Isn’t that kind of harsh?” said Quentin, feeling kind of irritated with her, “She was already pretty upset.”

“Well, yeah,” said Feng defensively, “but then I called her ‘home’ after saying that, and ‘mom’ again. I was…trying to like…think of a way to tell her we would not just never come back. That was the best I could think of.”

“Oh,” said Quentin, replaying what he’d seen in his head.

“Do you think she got it?” asked Feng nervously.

“Yeah. Well, maybe not right now,” said Quentin, correcting himself, “But I think she will. When she goes back and finds the necklace.”

“You think so?” said Feng, looking a little better.

He nodded, and then his mind wandered, replaying images. Seeing her in the doorway.

“You sure you’re okay?” asked Feng.

“I don’t know,” said Quentin, “But I probably will be, eventually.” He looked past her at the people by the fire, feeling far away and lonely again, missing his dad. “Do you really think we’ll all actually go home?”

Feng shrugged. “Maybe. I think I do, but I don’t know either.” She moved to stand beside him and looked up. “I can promise tomorrow will be a good day though.”

“Yeah?” asked Quentin.

She nodded. “Trust me. Now come on, we’re probably making them worry.”

He went with her, back towards the fire and the people waiting there, thinking. This place wasn’t home, but it wasn’t _not_ home. It was like a waystation. An in-between place. But the people were real.

“How do you say that, in Russian?” he asked Feng as they neared the group again, “’Home’?”

“дома,” replied Feng, glancing over.

“дома,” echoed Quentin.

“Why?” asked Feng.

Quentin shrugged. “It just seemed like it might be a good thing to know how to say.”

_дома._

“Oh,” said Quentin suddenly, reaching up to feel, “Do I still have the—”

“The bandages?” asked Feng, “No. But you do have the rope.”

He looked down at the rope hanging from his neck. She still had hers too.

“Don’t worry,” said Feng, “Noose style suits you.”

 _I’ll bet it does,_ thought Quentin.

“Hey,” called out Feng as they reached the others, “We’re back.”

“How did it go?” asked Dwight a little like he thought he was stepping into a trap.

“That,” said Feng, looking from him to Quentin, “That is a hard fucking question. Quentin?”

“Well,” said Quentin, thinking over the thousands of things he felt like it would be impossible to explain in a way someone could understand and settling for the one that wasn’t, “I got a hatchet.”

“You—!” Laurie’s eyes lit up as he lifted up the item.

A surge of voices started up, all talking over each other.

“How?” asked Dwight, amazed.

“She gave it to me,” said Quentin, “To protect myself with.”

The others kept talking, but he stopped on that thought, sinking into it. Remembering. _To keep me safe._

He caught Feng watching him from beside Nea, and wondered if she was thinking about the night and the blue quilts and the Huntress, or just thinking that he was stupid for being like this.

 _До свидания Матушка_ , thought Quentin again, wishing he’d known something better to say, wishing he could remember his own mom, wishing this was something he could have talked to his dad about, _I’m sorry. I really am going to miss you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end to The Jungle Book that most people are familiar with, the end given to almost every adaptation, with Mowgli leaving his home in the jungle as a boy to go live with humans, is actually not that book’s end. In the original Rudyard Kipling book, Mowgli does leave to live with adoptive parents who think he may be their lost baby for a while, but when the villagers see him kill Shere Khan the tiger with help from other animals to save the village, he is driven out because they think he is a sorcerer, and they kill his adoptive parents too, for sheltering him. Mowgli finds out and comes back to rescue them and destroy the villagers, which he does with help from the animals, but then he returns to living with his wolf pack. The end of the story that gets used is taken not from The Jungle Book, but from The Second Jungle Book, published in 1895, and while technically a sequel, the story used in adaptations is the final short story in that collection (not counting the epilogue poem), 'The Spring Running', and the end of Mowgli’s tale. By this time, Mowgli is no longer a little boy. He is seventeen, and has protected his pack through a lot and become master of the Jungle. He is, however, getting lonely in the wild, even with his pack. The 'Spring Running' is an annual ritual of his where he goes on a long run through the jungle at the beginning of spring, and, feeling depressed for reasons he isn't even sure of, Mowgli goes much further on his run than he usually does, and starts to feel so overcome with unhappiness that he thinks he's going to die. However, he stumbles onto a human village, and recognizes the voice of a woman in one of the houses as Messua, his adoptive mom from the short time he spent with humans, and he goes to see her. She remembers him and invites him into her home gladly. She's older, and her husband is dead now, and she is raising her little two year old son on her own. Mowgli still feels ill, but Messua looks after him and they laugh and bond, her and him and his baby brother, and Mowgli feels so safe there he sleeps until the end of the next day, when Messua gives him a nice dinner and sings to him while brushing his hair, and they’re happy. That night, one of the wolves comes to look for Mowgli, and Mowgli goes to leave with him, but Messua as his mother can’t stand to lose him again and begs him to come back to her, and he promises he will.  
> Once he leaves the human village with his wolf brother, Mowgli is torn between wanting to stay with his family in the jungle, and to live with humans again. He has been told, though, again and again by the other animals--by his wolf mother, by Bagheera, by the former head of his pack--that he will someday want to go, in the end, back to his own—to humans. And he decides it is time to go. Leaving behind the family he knew, who tell him their goodbyes, and that they will be there if he calls, and love him, Mowgli is heartbroken, but he leaves, and returns, in the end, to Messua.
> 
> It was actually serendipity that The Jungle Book ended up being in this chapter originally at all, but when I was doing research, it was one of the first illustrated children’s books in Russia around the turn of the century when Anna lived that I came across, and it was too fitting to pass up. Canonically, Anna collected books—especially picture books, and was fascinated by the pictures in them, even though she couldn’t read. Which is sweet, and also sad, like everything about her.
> 
> While Anna’s vocabulary would definitely be limited after the life she’s had, all of her dialogue is made of simple words and phrases a mother would have been likely to use with her when she was little quite often. Also, the plant Anna would have been using to help heal cuts is Broadleaf Plantain, which is and has long been a commonly used plant for healing in Russia (and everywhere else it is found) because it is so abundant and effective. Not only is it an anti-inflammatory, it is also a pain reliever. 
> 
> It has been some kind of week for me. My cat died, so it’s been a lot. Writing has been therapeutic, though, and this chapter is a big deal to me, because it is officially the point where this fic becomes longer than the entire works of The Lord of the Rings. It’s kind of a crazy banner moment for me to have written something that big. You all cannot know how happy it makes me to have all of you read and enjoy and comment or like this massive thing, and to have been able to share it, and it’s frankly incredible to me that you all have consumed such a huge fic. You are all wonderful, and it’s really great to be able to do this! So thank you.


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